Jeremy Soule ( ) is an American composer of soundtracks for film, television, and video games. He has composed soundtracks for over 60 games and over a dozen other works during his career, including The Elder Scrolls, Guild Wars, Total Annihilation, and the Harry Potter series.

He became an employee of Square in 1994 after several years of private composition studies. After finishing the soundtrack to Secret of Evermore in 1995, he left to join Humongous Entertainment, where he composed for several children's games as well as Total Annihilation, his first award-winning score. In 2000, he left to form his own music production company, Soule Media, later called Artistry Entertainment. In 2005, he founded DirectSong, a record label that published digital versions of his soundtracks as well as those of classical composers. DirectSong remained active until 2019.

Soule's works have been played in several live concerts such as the Symphonic Game Music Concert in Germany and the international Play! A Video Game Symphony concert series. While many of his works are orchestral, he considers himself someone who creates more than just one type of music. Several of Soule's soundtracks were created with the help of his brother, Julian Soule.

Early life

Soule was born in Iowa to a public school music teacher father and a graphic designer mother. He became interested in music and symphony orchestras at the age of five. Soule began taking piano lessons at an early age and became entranced with music, even writing music notation in the margins of his math homework; after his teachers and his father realized his talent, he began taking private lessons with professors from Western Illinois University when he was in sixth grade.

Artistry Entertainment scored a string of highly successful games through the remainder of the decade, including the Guild Wars series, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

2010s

Soule worked on several major titles in the early 2010s, including The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Guild Wars 2. The Skyrim soundtrack in particular is among Soule's most critically acclaimed pieces of work, receiving a BAFTA nomination as well as numerous other awards from organizations such as the Game Audio Network Guild. Soule was replaced as lead composer on the project later that year, with subsequent releases (such as expansions) being composed by Maclaine Diemer.

In March 2013, Soule launched a Kickstarter project to fund a classical music album called The Northerner: Soule Symphony No. 1, seeking $10,000 for the album. The project features vocals in Old Norse, with Soule citing the successful use of the similar Icelandic language by Malukah in one of her own projects during development. For the project, Soule indicated that his company were developing new audio technology. Soule began accepting refunds for the unreleased symphony in 2016. An album of sketches was ultimately released in 2017, though not the full symphony. As of 2025, the project has not been released.

In 2014, Soule also signed an MMO exclusivity deal with Sony Online Entertainment, to compose music for EverQuest Next and Landmark. EverQuest Next was canceled in March 2016; Landmark was released but shut down in February 2017, less than a year after launch. In 2015, Soule composed a Dota 2 music pack, along with his brother Julian. The soundtrack was available as part of the Compendium, a pack of digitally-distributed content that funded the prize pool for The International 2015 tournament, which took place in August 2015 and ultimately featured the largest prize-pool in e-sports history at the time, with over $18,000,000 in total. In the following few years he primarily worked on indie titles.

In 2014, Julian and Jeremy Soule co-founded an audio company named Virtual Sonics. The company entered into a joint venture with Roland Corporation in 2016, with Soule appointed co-director. Virtual Sonics produced digital instrumentation for Roland Cloud, which launched in 2018. Legendary Pictures co-founder Scott Mednick was an early investor in Virtual Sonics, but withdrew in August 2019 via a stock buyout. A dispute over the terms of the purchase ultimately led to a lawsuit between Mednick and Soule in 2022, which was resolved in favor of Soule.

Controversies

In August 2019, Soule was accused of rape by game designer Nathalie Lawhead. He was also accused of sexual harassment by vocalist Aeralie Brighton. He denied the accusations and was never charged with a crime. Soule's music distribution platform DirectSong and his Bandcamp page were also seemingly taken offline around this time.

Performances

Soule's music has been played in several live concerts. His music from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was performed on August 20, 2003, at the first Symphonic Game Music Concert in Leipzig, Germany, and his music from Morrowind was performed at the third Symphonic Game Music Concert on August 17, 2005.

Legacy

Soule's music has been featured in numerous top-selling games; he once estimated in an interview that around 10 million games with his music in them were sold in 2006 alone.

  • Secret of Evermore (1995) – with Julian Soule
  • Icewind Dale (2000)
  • Giants: Citizen Kabuto (2000)
  • Beauty and the Beast (2000)
  • Total Annihilation: Kingdoms- The Iron Plague (2000)
  • Rugrats in Paris: The Movie (2000)
  • Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter (2001)
  • EverQuest Online Adventures (2003)
  • Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup (2003)
  • Sovereign (canceled in 2003)
  • Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003)
  • Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna (2003)
  • Impossible Creatures (2003)
  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2003)
  • Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
  • Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War (2004)
  • Kohan II: Kings of War (2004)
  • Guild Wars (2005)
  • Dungeon Siege II (2005)
  • Company of Heroes (2006)
  • Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor (2006)
  • Warhammer: Mark of Chaos (2006)
  • The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006)
  • Guild Wars: Eye of the North (2007) – with Julian Soule
  • IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey (2009)
  • Order of War (2009))
  • Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (2010) – with various others
  • Dead Rising 2 (2010) – with Oleksa Lozowchuk, The Humble Brothers, and Julian Soule
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)
  • Otomedius Excellent (2011) – with many others
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Dawnguard (2012)
  • Guild Wars 2 (2012)
  • World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria (2012) – with many others
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Dragonborn (2012)
  • War Thunder (2013) – main theme only
  • Dead Rising 3 (2013) – one song with Julian Soule
  • Consortium (2014)
  • The Elder Scrolls Online (2014) – title theme and cinematics
  • Dota 2: The International 2015 Music Pack (2015) – with Julian Soule
  • The Gallery: Call of the Starseed (2016)
  • Landmark (2016)
  • The Gallery: Heart of the Emberstone (2017)

Film and television

  • Journey Toward Creation (2003) – documentary
  • 2003 MTV Movie Awards (2003) – awards show
  • C.S. Lewis: Beyond Narnia (2005) – television movie (co-credited with Julian Soule)
  • Beyond the Yellow Brick Road: The Making of Tin Man (2007) – documentary short
  • Florence Nightingale (2008) – television movie
  • The Offering (2009) – short film
  • Dracula's Stoker (2009) – documentary
  • Witch Creek (2010) – feature
  • KJB – The Book That Changed The World (2010) – documentary
  • War for Peace (2011) – documentary series
  • The Burdens of Shaohao: Prelude "The Vision" (2013)
  • The Perfect Wave (2014) – feature
  • Walk of Fame (2017) – feature
  • Ice on Fire (2019) – documentary

Albums

  • The Northerner Diaries (2017)

Theater

  • Storyeum (2000)
  • Ecstasy (2003)

Awards

{| class="wikitable"

|+

|-

!scope="col" | Year

!scope="col" | Award

!scope="col" | Category

!scope="col" | Work

!scope="col" | Result

|-

! scope="row" |2001

|Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences

|Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition

| rowspan="8" |The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

|

|-

|The Hollywood Music in Media Awards

|Original Score – Video Game

|

|-

|Global Music Awards

|Award of Excellence

|

|-

|BAFTA Games Awards

|Best Score, Game Music Category

|

|}

References

</references>

  • IMDb page
  • Discography at VGMdb