Nainita Desai
- Composer
- Music Department
- Sound Department
Nainita Desai is an Emmy winning composer whose genre spanning scores have made her a leading voice in contemporary screen music. She has amassed a multitude of awards and nominations, including an Emmy for The Reason I Jump, RTS craft, IFMCA, SCL and World Soundtrack Award Discovery Of The Year wins and numerous nominations from the Ivor Novello, BIFA, Critics’ Choice and Cinema Eye Honors juries . In 2025 she captured ASCAP’s top video game prize for her score to EA’s Bafta acclaimed game Tales of Kenzera: Zau and her title theme for the Disney+ / AMC fantasy series Nautilus (starring Shazad Latif) earned a nomination for Television Theme of the Year.
Her slate spans high profile television dramas, feature documentaries and triple A video games as well as BBC1 scripted series The Split Up (Sister Pictures), and projects for Nat Geo, Netflix and the BBC.
Desai has scored the Disney+ / AMC / Amazon adventure series Nautilus, and all three seasons of ITV’s crime drama The Tower (starring Gemma Whelan, Jimmy Akinbola). On the festival circuit she is celebrated for the Sundance craft winning documentary Nocturnes (Cinema Eye 2025 nominee) and Hulu’s headline grabbing doc The Contestant.
Nainita has also scored scripted series including BBC One’s Crossfire (starring Keely Hawes), Sky’s Funny Woman (starring Gemma Arterton) and StudioCanal’s feature Something in the Water. Her passion for natural history is evident in landmark series including The Wild Ones (Apple TV+), Earthsounds (Apple TV+), James Cameron’s Ocean Xplorers, National Geographic’s Emmy winning series Secrets of the Penguins and Predators (Netflix). Desai gained international acclaim for her scores to the Oscar nominated and Bafta / Cannes winning For Sama, Netflix’s 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible (Emmy nominated score), Body Parts (Emmy nominated score) and the hit Netflix film The Deepest Breath. She has scored multiple No. 1 Netflix documentaries of the year, from American Murder: The Family Next Door to What Jennifer Did. Her music has been performed by renowned orchestras including City Of Birmingham Orchestra, Film Music Krakow, WSA Ghent, MOSMA Malaga, the Camille Awards in Paris, and SXSW London 2025.
Desai is celebrated for her collaborations with acclaimed game creator Sam Barlow, scoring the BAFTA-winning interactive movie-games Telling Lies and Immortality, Call of Duty Modern Warfare II and is currently scoring a multi-year international installation project alongside new AAA franchise games. Other projects include the recently released solo album Tessellation, created for a large scale permanent installation in California and Australia. In the world of immersive storytelling,
Born in London to Indian parents, Desai’s eclectic upbringing led her to study sitar, piano, guitar, tabla, violin, and voice. After earning a degree in mathematics, she trained in sound design at the National Film and Television School, going on to work as a sound designer on feature films including films for Bernardo Bertolucci and Werner Herzog, and as an assistant engineer for Peter Gabriel.
With a strong sense of narrative empathy, Nainita Desai’s music - whether sweeping orchestral fantasy, minimal understated scoring, experimental hand-crafted sound design, or dark, edgy electronics - is always emotionally immersive. Every project has its own unique sonic world, as she fuses custom-built instruments, vintage synths, found sounds, and global influences into scores that are both expansive and intimate, always rooted in the emotional truth of the story. Her approach has led to collaborations with artists from Eivør to the London Contemporary Orchestra, and to documentary-musicals such as the BBC’s City of Dreams.
Nainita has also scored scripted series including BBC One’s Crossfire (starring Keely Hawes), Sky’s Funny Woman (starring Gemma Arterton) and StudioCanal’s feature Something in the Water. Her passion for natural history is evident in landmark series including The Wild Ones (Apple TV+), Earthsounds (Apple TV+), James Cameron’s Ocean Xplorers, National Geographic’s Emmy winning series Secrets of the Penguins and Predators (Netflix). Desai gained international acclaim for her scores to the Oscar nominated and Bafta / Cannes winning For Sama, Netflix’s 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible (Emmy nominated score), Body Parts (Emmy nominated score) and the hit Netflix film The Deepest Breath. She has scored multiple No. 1 Netflix documentaries of the year, from American Murder: The Family Next Door to What Jennifer Did. Her music has been performed by renowned orchestras including City Of Birmingham Orchestra, Film Music Krakow, WSA Ghent, MOSMA Malaga, the Camille Awards in Paris, and SXSW London 2025.
Desai is celebrated for her collaborations with acclaimed game creator Sam Barlow, scoring the BAFTA-winning interactive movie-games Telling Lies and Immortality, Call of Duty Modern Warfare II and is currently scoring a multi-year international installation project alongside new AAA franchise games. Other projects include the recently released solo album Tessellation, created for a large scale permanent installation in California and Australia. In the world of immersive storytelling,
Born in London to Indian parents, Desai’s eclectic upbringing led her to study sitar, piano, guitar, tabla, violin, and voice. After earning a degree in mathematics, she trained in sound design at the National Film and Television School, going on to work as a sound designer on feature films including films for Bernardo Bertolucci and Werner Herzog, and as an assistant engineer for Peter Gabriel.
With a strong sense of narrative empathy, Nainita Desai’s music - whether sweeping orchestral fantasy, minimal understated scoring, experimental hand-crafted sound design, or dark, edgy electronics - is always emotionally immersive. Every project has its own unique sonic world, as she fuses custom-built instruments, vintage synths, found sounds, and global influences into scores that are both expansive and intimate, always rooted in the emotional truth of the story. Her approach has led to collaborations with artists from Eivør to the London Contemporary Orchestra, and to documentary-musicals such as the BBC’s City of Dreams.
