What We Lost: an interview with composer Hanan Townshend
“If music played when loss first entered the world, what would it have sounded like? I don’t imagine it would have been sweeping or theatrical. It would have been quiet. Bare. A fragile silence.” —Hanan Townshend
Grief is a wordless country. Cathartic emotional storms may sweep over us, but in the kingdom of grief, silence is our truest companion. What We Lost captures this place. The notes open a doorway to what can’t be said by issuing an invitation to the wordless corners of grief and love. The beauty of this remarkable album is found in music marked by restraint, not big statements, and in fragile moments captured but not defined. There, with dignity, elegant simplicity and deep reverence, Hanan Townshend gives voice to the voicelessness of loss.
If you are currently on a journey through grief, What We Lost is traveling music—a companion that offers compassionate understanding and glimmers of life and hope in the midst of loss. It’s an honor to share Hanan Townshend’s beautiful music and thoughtful words with you on No Dead Guys.
Who or what sparked your interest in music and at what age did you begin formal lessons?
I was always interested in music growing up, but the real spark happened when I began experimenting with the arranger on my family’s Kurzweil digital piano. I realized that if I layered ideas and instruments together, the colors and feelings of the notes could suddenly come alive. I would add a choir or an oboe and everything shifted again. It felt like discovery. A sandbox of sounds.
I began to understand music not just as melody, but as atmosphere, as architecture.
I started taking piano lessons around six years old. I didn’t grow up in a family of professional musicians. My parents were dairy farmers, but they valued music and made sure I had the opportunity to study it. I began playing keyboards at my local church around twelve, and that was where I really developed the ability to improvise.
When did you begin writing music and what was your first composition?
I started writing music around eight or ten years old. I started out with writing piano and instrumental pieces, but as I got older I leaned more into songwriting. I played in several bands through high school and wrote solo singer-songwriter material as well.
It wasn’t really until college, when I began studying composition, that the instrumental side of me really found its place again.
I honestly don’t remember what my first composition was. I wrote a lot of small pieces during my younger years, but most of them are lost to time or sitting on some dusty hard drive. Probably best they stay there.
You’ve mentioned in previous interviews that being raised on a New Zealand dairy farm has helped shape your career as a composer. In what ways?
I think the farming life teaches you a lot. There is a slow steadiness to it that ebbs and flows with the seasons. Some days can feel monotonous, but you always show up and do the job you need to do. That kind of discipline can translate into any profession, but I have found it especially helpful as a composer, particularly in shaping my work ethic and showing up even when I don’t feel inspired.
There is also something about New Zealand culture, a sense of giving things a go and not overthinking it. I never set out to be recognized for acclaim or talent. I just wanted to be a regular guy who writes music. That mindset has helped me take risks I probably would not have taken otherwise because the pressure feels lighter.
And all of that is tied to the land itself. There is something very poetic about the landscapes of my home country, and I have always felt connected to them. There’s a sense of space that has helped shape how I hear music. Even though I now live in Texas, the sounds and openness of home still influence the way I write.
As an award-winning composer known for his poetic orchestral scoring and evocative, cinematic commercial work, you are a longtime collaborator of legendary filmmaker Terrence Malick. How did you two meet and how many films have you done together?
I met Terry through one of my professors at the University of Texas. He forwarded me an email that was essentially a help-wanted ad. It didn’t mention Terry or the film (The Tree of Life) and I took a meeting not really knowing what would come of it.
We’ve now worked together on five films, and we continue to collaborate. His process is very unique. Music plays such a big role in not just helping shape the story but also telling it. It is weaved together with picture, voice over and other musical pieces (classical or otherwise) to create a kind of cinematic collage. There is a fluidity to the process which I love and Terry is often pushing me to write in new ways. Working with him has really changed how I think about music and storytelling.
Tell me a bit about how storytelling shapes not only your film work but also your solo projects.
I have always needed a thread of story to hold onto when I write. Even if I do not know exactly what it is yet, I need the sense that one exists.
Music without a narrative, whether internal or external, feels unanchored to me.
Working on film has sharpened that instinct, when you are writing to picture, you are constantly asking what the scene is really about. I bring that same question into my solo work. Even if the narrative is abstract, it is there.
Congratulations on the release of your latest recording, What We Lost. What inspired you to create it and how did storytelling guide the progression of pieces on this album?
It did not begin as a grand idea, but as a handful of music fragments; small pieces I had written over the years that felt connected somehow. I decided to carve out some space in my life to sit with them and noticed they all shared this kind of “ache” – a grief, a loss. More honestly, I realized the album wasn’t just about loss, it was also about my discomfort with it. I tend to move past it by staying busy or distracting myself. This record slowed me down and forced me to sit in that space.
I was drawn to the idea of grief as a journey, a pathway we walk down with moments of struggle, confusion, and questioning, but also a quiet sense that life persists. The flow of the tracks on the album is structured around this journey, where the pieces drift into each other in a way that takes you deeper or reveals another color. I often find that visual cues help me to make sense of the narrative I’m working within. The album cover, drawn by my friend and Austin artist Billy Hollis, is an image of a stone archway. I loved the idea that the record is not a statement but an invitation to a pathway many have walked before.
What We Lost is a powerful album, both for the beauty of your music and for your masterful restraint. The notes open a doorway to what can't be said—an invitation to the wordless places of grief and love. How difficult was it to distill big, powerful emotions to such succinct musical expressions?
It didn’t feel difficult because I was not trying to make something grand. I was not trying to solve grief or make a dramatic statement about it. I was trying to sit in it.
As I was writing there was a question that kept returning to me: If music played when loss first entered the world, what would it have sounded like? I don’t imagine it would have been sweeping or theatrical. It would have been quiet. Bare. A fragile silence.
That is why restraint felt honest. I often found myself stripping the pieces back to their simplest form. There is a child-like quality to many of the piano arrangements, and that was intentional. I feel like when we try to analyze emotion as adults, it becomes complicated. A child simply feels what they feel.
The record mirrors that simplicity. It leaves space rather than filling it. It allows grief to be present without trying to explain it.
The tracks on this album are bracketed by three variations of the same piece—“What We Lost I”, “What We Lost II”, and “What We Lost III". Tell me about the evolution of the music from the emptiness of the first piece to the fullness of the last one.
As a film composer, I tend to think in themes that evolve alongside a story, so it felt natural for this piece to unfold in variations that mirror the arc of the record itself.
The first version is intentionally sparse, almost hesitant, serving as an introduction that eases the listener into the space the album inhabits and invites them to step through the archway into something quieter and more interior.
As the album moves forward, the idea returns, but this time it carries more weight. With the addition of strings and a fuller structure, the second variation expands the emotional world of the record, introducing counter-melodies and harmonic depth to surface in a way that feels less solitary and more communal.
The third and final variation becomes a song. I wrestled with that choice at first, unsure how it would feel to end an otherwise instrumental album with lyrics, but it ultimately felt right. After spending so much time in wordless emotion, I wanted to offer a small measure of language, something that might gently articulate what had been circling beneath the surface all along. I love that it arrives at the end almost unexpectedly, like something discovered rather than announced - a quiet reward for those who stay.
These pieces contain dignity, elegant simplicity, and reverence. The piano offers grounding, and when included, the strings and effects reach into the beyond. What can you share about this interplay of the tangible and intangible in this music?
I really love this question.
There is an interplay between the two.
The piano is such a physical instrument. It feels grounded and human, almost like it carries the body and memory within it. You hear the weight of the keys, the striking of the hammers and the air in the room. There is something very tangible about it.
The strings and textures are quite different. They bloom and hover. They’re less physical and more atmospheric. Sometimes they feel like they are reaching beyond what can be defined.
I think of loss as existing in both spaces. There is the tangible pain you can feel and the silence that follows it. But there is also something intangible. The unanswered questions. The sense that life is larger and more fragile than we understand.
The strings are not there to resolve that tension. They widen the space around it.
For me, it carries a kind of spiritual dimension. The sense that grief can open us to something beyond ourselves. The record tries to hold both the grounded and the possibility that there is more.
Tell me a bit about “The Birds,” which feels like dawn breaking after a dark night. In what ways do you feel the hopefulness of this track counterbalances “What We Lost III”, which closes the album?
“The Birds” really shaped how nature fits into the larger tapestry of the album. I chose to record my children’s upright piano at home. We live in an older house with single-pane windows, and my wife’s garden out front is full of birdsong and insects. During recording, I had to keep stopping takes because I could hear those sounds bleeding into the microphones. I was frustrated and felt they were ruining the recordings.
After wrestling with it for a while, I felt this urge to start embracing those sounds and placed the microphones outside in the garden. There’s a poem I studied in elementary school by the New Zealand poet Dennis Glover called The Magpies that kept coming back to me. In it, each stanza ends with the magpies’ call, even as human lives are marked by hardship and loss. That idea felt connected to what this album is exploring. Grief does not stop the world. The garden keeps growing. The birds keep singing. Life continues.
So, I allowed the birds to sing with the piano. It became less about controlling the environment and more about acknowledging that tension. All the birdsong you hear in that piece is live. Nothing has been added. All credit due to my neighborhood birds. ☺
“The Birds” does feel hopeful, but not in a naive way. To me, it feels like hope arriving quietly. Like something alive calling out from the horizon. If this album were only somber, it would not feel honest to me. The way it connects into the final song felt right, because hope and loss are not opposites. They need each other. They live together.
No creative journey leaves the creator untouched. How was your experience with loss changed through the creation of What We Lost?
This record grounded me. It slowed me down enough to sit with loss instead of trying to move past it. In the process, grief became less of a problem to solve and more of a space to inhabit.
I began to sense that loss is not something to escape or outgrow but is just another part of the human experience.
It also reminded me why I write music in the first place. Not for outcome or validation, but for discovery. It required me to move my ego out of the way and allow something quieter to surface. In doing so, loss feels less isolating. It becomes shared.
I understand that in addition to the recording, you will be releasing these pieces in a piano book. Where might we purchase it?
Yes, I am very excited about this. I always imagined these pieces as something people could sit with at home, not just listen to but play. There is something beautiful about music living in your own hands. The arrangements are very close to what you hear on the record and written in a way that any level player can approach.
The limited-edition booklet will be available on Bandcamp alongside the digital release, CD, and vinyl. All album purchases will also include PDFs of the sheet music.
What advice do you offer young composers on how to create a career in music?
We’re living in a time when the world of music is incredibly saturated, and there is often an emphasis on quantity over quality. I would encourage composers to go deeper. To write music that carries intention and structure. Composers, and artists in general, have always helped give form to what feels intangible in the human experience. I think that frame of mind sustains a career. Once people see you handle emotion honestly, whether you’re writing for film, the concert hall, or your own solo work, they will come back.
So, focus on doing meaningful work and building real relationships around it. Careers grow from trust and depth far more than from visibility alone.
Hanan Townshend is an award-winning composer known for his poetic orchestral scoring and evocative, cinematic commercial work. A longtime collaborator of legendary filmmaker Terrence Malick, Townshend made his mark in film with his piano arrangements for the Palme d’Or-winning The Tree of Life (2011), starring Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain. He went on to compose the score for Malick’s To the Wonder(2014), collaborating on sonics with acclaimed producer Daniel Lanois, followed by Knight of Cups (2015), Voyage of Time (2016), and ongoing contributions to Malick’s future projects.
Beyond his work with Malick, Townshend has scored an array of acclaimed feature films, including Julio Quintana’s Blue Miracle (2021) and The Long Game (2023), an inspirational sports drama executive produced by Dennis Quaid. His other notable works include The Book of Vision (2020); Oscar-nominated director Henry Alex Rubin’s Semper Fi (2019) and Samuel Van Grinsven’s psychological thriller/horror Went Up The Hill (2025).
Townshend is also widely recognized for his work in documentary film, composing scores for Megan Mylan’s Academy Award-shortlisted Simple As Water (2021), the Emmy-winning Outcry (2020), and the Critics Choice and Emmy-winning Disgraced(2017). His music also helped shape Fathom (2021), a Tribeca competition selection released by Apple TV+.
His ability to craft deeply expressive, cinematic music has also made him a sought-after composer in the commercial world. He has created scores for campaigns by Apple, Nike, Guinness, and Volvo, with work featured during the Super Bowl, Apple Keynotes, and the Oscars. Townshend frequently collaborates with three-time Academy Award-winning cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, scoring Lubezki’s signature, visually poetic campaigns for Vanity Fair, Apple, and Sony.
Described as poetic, spiritual, and deeply immersive, Townshend’s compositions are shaped by an innovative approach to storytelling—crafting soundscapes that extend a film’s internal atmosphere and translate intangible emotions into music. Growing up on a remote coastal farm in New Zealand, his connection to nature continues to inspire his work’s depth and sensitivity.
A native of New Zealand, Townshend studied at the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University before furthering his education in film scoring and production at the University of Texas. He now composes for international projects from his studio in Austin, Texas.