Tom Wheatley

Tom Wheatley is a composer and improviser, operating in the fractious and fertile interfaces of acoustic and digital sound, extending instruments via technique and technology. Beginning with the double bass, he also works with synthetic sound and processing and plays a wide selection of instruments in collaboration with a broad range of performers and instrumentalists, from long-standing duos to one-off improvisations.

His score as composer for Giulio Bertelli’s striking debut feature film Agon (2025) will be released in 2026 on PAN Records. Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize (International Federation of Film Critics), the film is a triptych of three female athletes preparing for fictional Olympic games. Straddling fiction and documentary, the score reflects the film’s hyper-focus on the gesture of sports performances, with each protagonist mirrored by an instrumentalist: fencing with cellist Ute Kanngiesser; rifle shooting with saxophonist Jean-Luc Guionnet; and judo with percussionist Seijiro Murayama, with his bandmate Grundik Kasyansky on electronics and Harry Gorskí-Brown on bagpipes completing the chamber group.

Prior to Agon, he worked on scores with award-winning composer Daniel Blumberg, including the Oscar and BAFTA-winning score for Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist (2024), as well as director Mona Fastvold’s The World to Come (2020) and The Testament of Ann Lee (2025), for which he played viola da gamba and other early European string instruments.

Beyond film, Wheatley's active collaborations merge acoustic instrumentation with digital processing, fashion, and physical media. As one half of Tennota alongside Grundik Kasyansky, he manipulates materials such as gut strings, tree sap, and feedback into a taut rhythmic language, with releases on Accidental Meetings and Meakusma. He frequently extends sound into physical and critical environments: Vesta Payne, his project with Sarah Hartnett, produced the 2023 EP mlybdmncy by recording molten pewter cast in water, while Cast-On, a multidisciplinary duo with Ilana Blumberg, investigates the margins of fashion and performance via works like the film Dresser Music.

He applies this conceptual approach to live environments and fashion direction, working with Charles Jeffrey’s Loverboy label and the Italian project GR10K. For GR10K's SS25 launch, Wheatley musically directed and co-composed Stringent Manners, a six-hour performance harnessing the frustration of Milan Conservatory students acting as both models and instrumentalists. This interdisciplinary output is grounded in his pedigree as a seasoned instrumentalist from a multi-generational musical family, maintaining an extensive collaborative record with contemporary music stalwarts including Evan Parker, Okkyung Lee, Eddie Prévost, and Ilan Volkov, alongside releases on OtoRoku, Matchless, and Earshots.

FILM

AGON (2025)
Production Company: MIA Film / Mubi
Producers: Joe Anton, Giulio Bertelli, Max Brun, Pietro Caracciolo
Director: Giulio Bertelli

The Testament of Ann Lee – Musician (2025)
Production Company: Kaplan Morrison
Producers: Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold, Joshua Horsfield, Gregory Jankilevitsch
Director: Mona Fastvold

The Brutalist Musician (2024)
Production Company: Kaplan Morrison
Producers: Brady Corbet, Nick Gordon, D.J. Gugenheim, Andrew Lauren
Director: Brady Corbet

The World to Come – musician (2020)
Production Company: Arsia Production
Producers: Casey Affleck, Margarethe Baillou, David Hinojosa, Pamela Koffler, and Whitaker Lader
Director: Mona Fastvold