Nicholas Hooper: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Composer Nicholas Hooper's agency, Cool Music Ltd, has confirmed that the composer will team up again with director David Yates scoring his second Harry Potter film for Warner Bros, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. This is the sixth film based on the bestselling fantasy novels by J.K. Rowling, and it's scheduled to premiere on November 21. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint all return in the film together with Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman. The signing of Nicholas Hooper to score last year's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came as a major surprise - although Hooper's had scored several award-winning television projects, he had only done a handful of features in the UK, and he was indeed a Hollywood outsider who would now fill the shoes of the legendary John Williams. It was a rare example of a director being able to maintain his composer relationship making his first major Hollywood studio movie.

Dave Grusin: Recount

Veteran composer Dave Grusin has been hired to compose the music for HBO's upcoming TV movie Recount, a film about the 2000 U.S. presidential election and the subsequent recounts in Florida. The film stars Kevin Spacey, John Hurt, Laura Dern, Tom Wilkinson and Denis Leary. It's directed by Jay Roach (best known for somewhat lighter material such as the Austin Powers trilogy and Meet the Parents), and produced by Spacey. Recount is Dave Grusin's first television work since 2001's Dinner with Friends, directed by Norman Jewison. Among his best known theatrical credits are Tootsie, The Goonies and The Firm.

William Ross: Our Lady of Victory

William Ross adds another sports drama to his filmography: Our Lady of Victory, a basketball movie directed by Tim Chambers. The film tells the story about a basketball coach at an 1970s all-girls Catholic college who is determined to get her team to its first national championship. Cast includes Carla Guginom, Marley Shelton and Ellen Burstyn. William Ross, who is repped by Gorfaine-Schwartz, previously scored the 2005 sports movie The Game of Their Lives, and his other recent scoring credits includ Driftwood and September Dawn. He is known also as one Hollywood's most experienced conductors and orchestrators, having worked extensively for composers such as Alan Silvestri and Klaus Badelt. He won an Emmy last year for his music direction of The 79th Annual Academy Awards.

Tim DeLaughter: The Assassination of a High School President

The Assassination of a High School President, the Yari Film Group's upcoming black comedy starring Bruce Willis, Mischa Barton and Michael Rapaport, will get music composed by Tim DeLaughter, according to the composer's agency, Gorfaine-Schwartz. DeLaughter, who is best known as the music director of excentric pop group The Polyphonic Spree, got his break in the film business with a song featured in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and has subsequently written music for Mike Mills' Thumbsucker and recently completed the score for Jared Drake's comedy Visioneers. The Assassination of a High School President is directed by Brett Simon, and is scheduled to premiere in August.

Heitor Pereira: South of the Border

Walt Disney Pictures' new live-action comedy in which animals talk, featuring the voices of Drew Barrymore, Andy Garcia and Salma Hayek, will get an original score and songs composed by Heitor Pereira, according to the Gorfaine-Schwartz Agency. South of the Border is directed by comedy specialist Raja Gosnell, who is best known for Never Been Kissed, Scooby-Doo and Big Momma's House. The film tells the story about a posh chihuahua who gets lost while on vacation in Mexico. Heitor Pereira, who has been a long-time member of Hans Zimmer's scoring team writing additional music and performing the guitar on numerous scores, has increased his number of solo gigs lately - his latest scores include Illegal Tender and Suburban Girl, and among his other upcoming films are the documentary Running the Sahara and thriller The Canyon.

Blake Neely: Surfer Dude

Upcoming comedy Surfer Dude, produced by and starring Matthew McConaughey, will get an original score composed by Blake Neely. The film is directed by S.R. Bindler, whose only other feature film directing credit is the 1997 documentary Hands on a Hard Body: The Documentary. The film has been described as a "a wave twisting tale of a soul searching surfer experiencing an existential crisis", with Alexie Gilmore, Jeffrey Nordling and Sarah Mason joining McConaughey in the cast. Blake Neely's other recent scoring projects include Elvis and Anabelle and The Great Buck Howard, and he also worked as an orchestrator on Alan Menken's Enchanted and conducted Hans Zimmer's scores for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and The Simpsons Movie.

Søren Hyldgaard: Red

Danish composer Søren Hyldgaard, who came to prominence in the film music community ten years ago with his big orchestral scores for Eye of the Eagle, Isle of Darkness and Angel of the Night, has composed the music for Red, an independent US thriller starring Brian Cox, Tom Sizemore and Noel Fisher. The film is based on Jack Ketchum's novel and directed by Norwegian director Trygve Allister Diesen, with whom Hyldgaard previously worked on Isle of Darkness. Red opens at Sundance next week.