John is an award-winning composer, songwriter and performer from Yorkshire.
He won the 2026 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play for KENREX and Best Composer at the Stage Debut Awards in 2022 for his score for the Olivier-nominated hit Cruise. He has performed his scores on London’s West End and composed for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
His most recent theatre work includes his live score for the acclaimed true-crime hit KENREX, which is currently playing off-Broadway after a sell-out run in London.
John also composes for film and television, with recent work including the BAFTA-nominated film Terence.
He has toured Europe extensively with his genre-hopping band The Little Unsaid, receiving radio support from Iggy Pop, performing at Glastonbury Festival and receiving the Steve Reid InNOVAtion Award for boundary-pushing music creators.
Photo by Pamela Raith
Press
“The soundtrack makes Kenrex the spectacle that it is, and John Patrick Elliott is a real master of his trade.”
— The Recs
“Elliott builds a richly evocative score of heavy rock and plaintive country music, along with a soundtrack of effects. The two create a vivid picture of this small Midwestern town, inviting the audience to conjure it with them and imagine the heat, the tension, the simmering violence.”
— Financial Times
“John Elliott's music is nothing short of extraordinary.”
— Broadway World
“An audacious and atmospheric live soundtrack composed and performed by John Patrick Elliott. Imagine, if you will, a musical score created by the ghost of Johnny Cash in collaboration with the celebrated duo of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, and you will have something approximating Elliott’s remarkable combination of country and western with dystopian post-punk rock music.”
— Telegraph
“Elliott’s presence both anchors and balances out Holden’s…the two men have a symbiotic stage rapport that is indispensable to the production’s effectiveness.”
— The New York Times
“The score by John Patrick Elliott is exceptional, creating a sonic undercurrent that is both propulsive and deeply unsettling. He is the onstage musician who becomes a vital presence, shaping the emotional rhythm of the piece in real time.”
— Times Square Chronicles
“A driving force of Stambollouian’s production — as well as one of its major pleasures — is the dynamic power derived from the rhythmic folk tunes and country & western music composed and performed onstage by John Patrick Elliott upon a variety of instruments including keyboard, guitars and percussion.”
— New York Stage Review
“Elliott’s hell-raising, pulse-quickening original music completes the spell, pulling us deeper into the world of Skidmore. An electrifying live performer with a banshee howl, this one-man band performs rollicking country songs that would make me turn up the radio, perhaps while speeding down a lonely highway in a dusty pickup truck.”
— Theatre Mania
“The production’s sonic landscape is equally compelling. John Patrick Elliott’s live Americana score does far more than underscore the drama; it becomes a character in its own right. Performed on stage, the music evokes the dusty plains of Missouri with haunting authenticity, using an inventive array of instruments and techniques to create texture and atmosphere. From foot-stomping rhythms to eerie, resonant tones, the score mirrors the emotional terrain of the story, amplifying its tension and melancholy. The interplay between sound and narrative is so finely tuned that the audience feels transported to Skidmore’s isolated streets.”
— Theatre Weekly
“Original and uncompromising…some of the most soul-searching, brutally self-aware music around.”
— KLOF Mag
“One of the most intriguing and innovative musical minds of his generation.”
— FATEA
“Stunning.”
— The Line of Best Fit
“AMAZING…The best portrayal of clubbing I have ever seen.”
— Russell T Davies (on Cruise)
“John Patrick Elliott is a stunningly effective wingman for Holden. Elliott composes and performs live a swaggering soundtrack evoking the 1980s by way of an astonishing range of influences: disco, Chicago House...The soundtrack is so infectious at times, it is a shame the venue is seated.”
— British Theatre Guide
“Providing the soundtrack and bringing London’s 80’s dance floors to life is composer, music producer and songwriter John Patrick Elliott. Simultaneously mixing tracks, singing and playing instruments, he creates an evolving electropop soundscape that captures the musical vibe of a decade and perfectly amplifies the action.”
— Evening Standard
“The performance is especially masterful on a sound level, too, to the extent that Cruise should be praised as a two-person play: composer and musician John Patrick Elliott may not play a character, but his score is as essential to the success of the play as Holden’s sensitively deft multi-rolling. The instrumentation and genre of the score evolve from the country-pop of Patsy Kline to Chicago house, but it never loses its effortlessly contrapuntal capability to emphasise each separate dramatic moment.”
— The Upcoming