Past Clients

Jamie Messenger Bio

Jamie Messenger is a composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist currently based in Adelaide, Australia. Jamie has composed music for every major Australian symphony orchestra, collaborated with many of the country’s most successful artists including Sia and the Hilltop Hoods and composed for over 1100 episodes of television.

 Jamie’s musical life began with piano lessons from his grandfather William Messenger. Initially studying as a classical pianist, it was his love of orchestral music and in particular film music led him to study composition. At Adelaide Conservatorium of Music Jamie studied composition and orchestration under leading Australian composer Graeme Koehne, achieving first class honours.

His instinct for orchestral composition and combined skills as both arranger and performer saw him working with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra before even completing his degree. Messenger soon became an integral part of the ASO’s Showtime series of concerts performing and arranging the music of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen, Jeff Buckley, Muse and Radiohead to name just a few. His prodigious skill in orchestration and fast, flexible work ethic led to composing and arranging for every leading symphony orchestra in the country.

 In 2005 Jamie collaborated with singer and songwriter Sia, performing on piano, singing backup vocals, arranging and conducting a cover of Radiohead’s Paranoid Android. The track appeared on the album Exit Music: Songs With Radio Heads, and also featured on an episode of the popular US TV show The O.C. (S04 E07)

In 2006 Jamie began working with Australia’s most successful hip hop group, Hilltop Hoods, composing the orchestral score for the album The Hard Road: Restrung. The album subsequently went on to win the "Best Urban" Aria Award and achieved platinum record status. This spawned an ongoing collaboration with the Hilltop Hoods with Messenger arranging, composing and performing on most of their subsequent album releases.

 Messenger’s last collaboration with the Hilltop Hoods Drinking From The Sun, Walking Under Stars Restrung was released in February 2016 and debuted at number one around Australia. Messenger composed the orchestral and choral scores for the entire album and was Musical Director for the national stadium tour, playing keyboards alongside the Hilltop Hoods and Australia’s leading Symphony Orchestras and Choirs. The Hilltop Hoods went on to win the ARIA award for the Best Australian Live Act for the Restrung Tour.

Messenger’s strong interest in film music was the inspiration for his first major commission, Music For An Absent Film. The piece was written for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Adelaide Chamber Singers and the live performance, recorded in the Adelaide Town Hall and broadcast on ABC classic FM. This led to a number of other commissions including a series of three fanfares for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, a string quartet for Zephyr Quartet and a solo bass clarinet piece for the Stellar! Collective.

 Jamie’s screen composing career started by writing soundtracks for many short films, four of which went on to receive AFI/AACTA nominations. (Spike Up, The Not-So-Great Eugene Green, The Orchestra and Reg Makes Contact). He then went on to compose for television networks ABC, TEN, Nickelodeon, Sesame Street as well as a national advertising campaign for Choices Flooring.

2015 saw the release of a five year collaboration with director/animator Mikey Hill. The 15 minute animated short film The Orchestra is set in a world where everyone has a team of musicians following them around playing a soundtrack to their lives. The complicated soundtrack won awards locally and internationally, winning the award for Best Original Score at St Kilda Film Festival and in Spain, the Jerry Goldsmith Award for Best Original Score in an Animated Short Film. The Orchestra won over 35 awards throughout its international festival run.

In 2018 Jamie began working on Australia’s longest running TV drama series Neighbours as score composer, music supervisor and also music editor. Working on six half-hour episodes of television a week, delivering 240 episodes a year, Jamie developed a talent for quickly determining the emotional heart of a scene. The show crossed a range of different genres including drama, comedy, action and thriller but Jamie’s focus was always on delivering music cues to support the story. In this time Jamie produced two versions of the iconic theme song with singers Bonnie Anderson and Chris Sebastian. Jamie finished up in 2025 after the show concluded its 40 year run.

 Despite the intense workload of Neighbours, Jamie found time to also score a soundtrack to a 7 part documentary series and feature film called The Bikes Of Wrath by Katering Show director Cameron Ford, a feature film for Stan A Christmas Ransom, and a short series for SBS Triple Oh! directed by Poppy Stockell.

 In 2020, amidst the pandemic, Jamie arranged and played piano for a recorded Christmas comedy special with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and a slew of Melbourne comedians. Jamie also orchestrated arrangements for two shows with Orchestra Victoria. The first was The Teskey Brothers recorded and filmed live at Hamer Hall. The second show was Mo’Ju and Orchestra Victoria live at Sidney Myer Music Bowl. Messenger’s continued collaborations with the artists resulted in two live album releases.

 Fresh off the back of finishing up at Neighbours in 2025, Jamie is currently composing a string quartet and practicing piano for a recital at the start of 2026.