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Austin Wintory is a Grammy-nominated and two-time BAFTA-winning composer. His career has straddled the worlds of concert music, film, and video games. Austin grew up in Denver and from the age of 10 was utterly addicted to film music. After teaching himself to compose, orchestrate and conduct in high school, he went on to study classically at NYU and USC. Following a whirlwind education in which he scored well over 150 student and small independent productions, he graduated and began working full-time in Los Angeles.
In 2012, Austin's soundtrack for the hit PlayStation3 game Journey became the first-ever Grammy-nominated videogame score, also winning two British Academy Awards, a DICE Award, a Spike TV VGA, and IGN's "Overall Music of the Year," along with five Game Audio Network Guild awards, and a host of others. Excerpts from the score have been performed all over the world since its release, including by such as ensembles as the National Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Colorado Symphony and Pacific Symphony.
Austin's score for the earlier game flOw made him the youngest composer ever to receive a British Academy Award nomination and also won him a wide variety of other game industry accolades, including the Game Audio Network Guild's "Rookie of the Year." An orchestral version of this music has been performed at the Smithsonian Museum as a part of their "Art of Games" exhibit; flOw is currently on display at MoMA in New York City.
Austin's film work including the Sundance-winning films Captain Abu Raed and Grace, along with over 40 other indie features such as A Little Help (starring Jenna Fischer), The River Why (starring Zach Gilford and William Hurt) and Dark Summer.- Music Department
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German-born composer Hans Zimmer is recognized as one of Hollywood's most innovative musical talents. He featured in the music video for The Buggles' single "Video Killed the Radio Star", which became a worldwide hit and helped usher in a new era of global entertainment as the first music video to be aired on MTV (August 1, 1981).
Hans Florian Zimmer was born in Frankfurt am Main, then in West Germany, the son of Brigitte (Weil) and Hans Joachim Zimmer. He entered the world of film music in London during a long collaboration with famed composer and mentor Stanley Myers, which included the film My Beautiful Laundrette (1985). He soon began work on several successful solo projects, including the critically acclaimed A World Apart, and during these years Zimmer pioneered the use of combining old and new musical technologies. Today, this work has earned him the reputation of being the father of integrating the electronic musical world with traditional orchestral arrangements.
A turning point in Zimmer's career came in 1988 when he was asked to score Rain Man for director Barry Levinson. The film went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture of the Year and earned Zimmer his first Academy Award Nomination for Best Original Score. The next year, Zimmer composed the score for another Best Picture Oscar recipient, Driving Miss Daisy (1989), starring Jessica Tandy, and Morgan Freeman.
Having already scored two Best Picture winners, in the early 1990s, Zimmer cemented his position as a preeminent talent with the award-winning score for The Lion King (1994). The soundtrack has sold over 15 million copies to date and earned him an Academy Award for Best Original Score, a Golden Globe, an American Music Award, a Tony, and two Grammy Awards. In total, Zimmer's work has been nominated for 7 Golden Globes, 7 Grammys and seven Oscars for Rain Man (1988), Gladiator (2000), The Lion King (1994), As Good as It Gets (1997), The The Preacher's Wife (1996), The Thin Red Line (1998), The Prince of Egypt (1998), and The Last Samurai (2003).
With his career in full swing, Zimmer was anxious to replicate the mentoring experience he had benefited from under Stanley Myers' guidance. With state-of-the-art technology and a supportive creative environment, Zimmer was able to offer film-scoring opportunities to young composers at his Santa Monica-based musical "think tank." This approach helped launch the careers of such notable composers as Mark Mancina, John Powell, Harry Gregson-Williams, Nick Glennie-Smith, and Klaus Badelt.
In 2000, Zimmer scored the music for Gladiator (2000), for which he received an Oscar nomination, in addition to Golden Globe and Broadcast Film Critics Awards for his epic score. It sold more than three million copies worldwide and spawned a second album Gladiator: More Music From The Motion Picture, released on the Universal Classics/Decca label. Zimmer's other scores that year included Mission: Impossible II (2000), The Road to El Dorado (2000), and An Everlasting Piece (2000), directed by Barry Levinson.
Some of his other impressive scores include Pearl Harbor (2001), The Ring (2002), four films directed by Ridley Scott; Matchstick Men (2003), Hannibal (2001), Black Hawk Down (2001), and Thelma & Louise (1991), Penny Marshall's Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), and A League of Their Own (1992), Tony Scott's True Romance (1993), Tears of the Sun (2003), Ron Howard's Backdraft (1991), Days of Thunder (1990), Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997), and the animated Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) for which he also co-wrote four of the songs with Bryan Adams, including the Golden Globe nominated Here I Am.
At the 27th annual Flanders International Film Festival, Zimmer performed live for the first time in concert with a 100-piece orchestra and a 100-voice choir. Choosing selections from his impressive body of work, Zimmer performed newly orchestrated concert versions of Gladiator, Mission: Impossible II (2000), Rain Man (1988), The Lion King (1994), and The Thin Red Line (1998). The concert was recorded by Decca and released as a concert album entitled "The Wings Of A Film: The Music Of Hans Zimmer."
In 2003, Zimmer completed his 100th film score for the film The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise, for which he received both a Golden Globe and a Broadcast Film Critics nomination. Zimmer then scored Nancy Meyers' comedy Something's Gotta Give (2003), the animated Dreamworks film, Shark Tale (2004) (featuring voices of Will Smith, Renée Zellweger, Robert De Niro, Jack Black, and Martin Scorsese), and Jim Brooks' Spanglish (2004) starring Adam Sandler and Téa Leoni (for which he also received a Golden Globe nomination). His 2005 projects include Paramount's The Weather Man (2005) starring Nicolas Cage, Dreamworks' Madagascar (2005), and the Warner Bros. summer release, Batman Begins (2005).
Zimmer's additional honors and awards include the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award in Film Composition from the National Board of Review, and the Frederick Loewe Award in 2003 at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. He has also received ASCAP's Henry Mancini Award for Lifetime Achievement. Hans and his wife live in Los Angeles and he is the father of four children.- Music Department
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Jason Graves was born on 14 September 1973 in California, USA. He is a composer, known for Eight Legged Freaks (2002), Prey (2022) and Dead Space (2008).- Composer
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Cliff Martinez was born on 5 February 1954 in The Bronx, New York, USA. He is a composer and actor, known for Only God Forgives (2013), The Neon Demon (2016) and Drive (2011).- Composer
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Jóhann Jóhannsson was born on 19 September 1969 in Reykjavík, Iceland. He was a composer and writer, known for Last and First Men (2020), The Theory of Everything (2014) and Sicario (2015). He died on 9 February 2018 in Berlin, Germany.- Music Department
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As one of the best known, awarded, and financially successful composers in US history, John Williams is as easy to recall as John Philip Sousa, Aaron Copland or Leonard Bernstein, illustrating why he is "America's composer" time and again. With a massive list of awards that includes over 52 Oscar nominations (five wins), twenty-odd Gold and Platinum Records, and a slew of Emmy (two wins), Golden Globe (three wins), Grammy (25 wins), National Board of Review (including a Career Achievement Award), Saturn (six wins), American Film Institute (including a Lifetime Achievement Award) and BAFTA (seven wins) citations, along with honorary doctorate degrees numbering in the teens, Williams is undoubtedly one of the most respected composers for Cinema. He's led countless national and international orchestras, most notably as the nineteenth conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980-1993, helming three Pops tours of the US and Japan during his tenure. He currently serves as the Pop's Conductor Laureate. Also to his credit is a parallel career as an author of serious, and some not-so-serious, concert works - performed by the likes of Mstislav Rostropovich, André Previn, Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham, Leonard Slatkin, James Ingram, Dale Clevenger, and Joshua Bell. Of particular interests are his Essay for Strings, a jazzy Prelude & Fugue, the multimedia presentation American Journey (aka The Unfinished Journey (1999)), a Sinfonietta for Winds, a song cycle featuring poems by Rita Dove, concerti for flute, violin, clarinet, trumpet, tuba, cello, bassoon and horn, fanfares for the 1984, 1988 and 1996 Summer Olympics, the 2002 Winter Olympics, and a song co-written with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman for the Special Olympics! But such a list probably warrants a more detailed background...
Born in Flushing, New York on February 8, 1932, John Towner Williams discovered music almost immediately, due in no small measure to being the son of a percussionist for CBS Radio and the Raymond Scott Quintet. After moving to Los Angeles in 1948, the young pianist and leader of his own jazz band started experimenting with arranging tunes; at age 15, he determined he was going to become a concert pianist; at 19, he premiered his first original composition, a piano sonata.
He attended both UCLA and the Los Angeles City College, studying orchestration under MGM musical associate Robert Van Eps and being privately tutored by composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, until conducting for the first time during three years with the U.S. Air Force. His return to the states brought him to Julliard, where renowned piano pedagogue Madame Rosina Lhevinne helped Williams hone his performance skills. He played in jazz clubs to pay his way; still, she encouraged him to focus on composing. So it was back to L.A., with the future maestro ready to break into the Hollywood scene.
Williams found work with the Hollywood studios as a piano player, eventually accompanying such fare such as the TV series Peter Gunn (1958), South Pacific (1958), Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), and To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), as well as forming a surprising friendship with Bernard Herrmann. At age 24, "Johnny Williams" became a staff arranger at Columbia and then at 20th Century-Fox, orchestrating for Alfred Newman and Lionel Newman, Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman, and other Golden Age notables. In the field of popular music, he performed and arranged for the likes of Vic Damone, Doris Day, and Mahalia Jackson... all while courting actress/singer Barbara Ruick, who became his wife until her death in 1974. John & Barbara had three children; their daughter is now a doctor, and their two sons, Joseph Williams and Mark Towner Williams, are rock musicians.
The orchestrating gigs led to serious composing jobs for television, notably Alcoa Premiere (1961), Checkmate (1960), Gilligan's Island (1964), Lost in Space (1965), Land of the Giants (1968), and his Emmy-winning scores for Heidi (1968) and Jane Eyre (1970). Daddy-O (1958) and Because They're Young (1960) brought his original music to the big theatres, but he was soon typecast doing comedies. His efforts in the genre helped guarantee his work on William Wyler's How to Steal a Million (1966), however, a major picture that immediately led to larger projects. Of course, his arrangements continued to garner attention, and he won his first Oscar for adapting Fiddler on the Roof (1971).
During the '70s, he was King of Disaster Scores with The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Earthquake (1974) and The Towering Inferno (1974). His psychological score for Images (1972) remains one of the most innovative works in soundtrack history. But his Americana - particularly The Reivers (1969) - is what caught the ear of director Steven Spielberg, then preparing for his first feature, The Sugarland Express (1974). When Spielberg reunited with Williams on Jaws (1975), they established themselves as a blockbuster team, the composer gained his first Academy Award for Original Score, and Spielberg promptly recommended Williams to a friend, George Lucas. In 1977, John Williams re-popularized the epic cinema sound of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman and other composers from the Hollywood Golden Age: Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) became the best selling score-only soundtrack of all time, and spawned countless musical imitators. For the next five years, though the music in Hollywood changed, John Williams wrote big, brassy scores for big, brassy films - The Fury (1978), Superman (1978), 1941 (1979), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) ... An experiment during this period, Heartbeeps (1981), flopped. There was a long-term change of pace, nonetheless, as Williams fell in love with an interior designer and married once more.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) brought about his third Oscar, and The River (1984), Empire of the Sun (1987), The Accidental Tourist (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) added variety to the 1980s, as he returned to television with work on Amazing Stories (1985) and themes for NBC, including NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (1970). The '80s also brought the only exceptions to the composer's collaboration with Steven Spielberg - others scored both Spielberg's segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) and The Color Purple (1985).
Intending to retire, the composer's output became sporadic during the 1990s, particularly after the exciting Jurassic Park (1993) and the masterful, Oscar-winning Schindler's List (1993). This lighter workload, coupled with a number of hilarious references on The Simpsons (1989) actually seemed to renew interest in his music. Two Home Alone films (1990, 1992), JFK (1991), Nixon (1995), Sleepers (1996), Seven Years in Tibet (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Angela's Ashes (1999), and a return to familiar territory with Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) recalled his creative diversity of the '70s.
In this millennium, the artist shows no interest in slowing down. His relationships with Spielberg and Lucas continue in A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), the remaining Star Wars prequels (2002, 2005), Minority Report (2002), Catch Me If You Can (2002), and a promised fourth Indiana Jones film. There is a more focused effort on concert works, as well, including a theme for the new Walt Disney Concert Hall and a rumored light opera. But one certain highlight is his musical magic for the world of Harry Potter (2001, 2002, 2004, etc.), which he also arranged into a concert suite geared toward teaching children about the symphony orchestra. His music remains on the whistling lips of people around the globe, in the concert halls, on the promenades, in album collections, sports arenas, and parades, and, this writer hopes, touching some place in ourselves. So keep those ears ready wherever you go, 'cause you will likely hear a bit of John Williams on your way.- Composer
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Marc Streitenfeld was born in 1974 in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany. He is a composer, known for Prometheus (2012), Robin Hood (2010) and American Gangster (2007).- Composer
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Martin O'Donnell is known for Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Destiny (2014) and Halo (2022). He is married to Marcie O'Donnell. They have two children.- Composer
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Michael Salvatori is known for Destiny (2014), Destiny: Rise of Iron (2016) and Destiny 2: Beyond Light (2020).- Composer
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Clinton Darryl Mansell is an English singer, musician and film composer known for his collaborations with Darren Aronofsky. He composed Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, Black Swan, The Wrestler, Noah, Ghost in the Shell, Peacemaker, Doom Patrol, Loving Vincent, Mass Effect 3, Titans, World Traveler, Smokin' Aces, Doom, The Hole, and Definitely, Maybe.- Music Department
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Argentine musician and leader of the now defunct bands "Arco Iris" and "Soluna", Gustavo Santaolalla was one of the references of his country's national music by the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s. During the 70s he relocated to the United States, where he formed the band Wet Picnic, with Aníbal Kerpel, Aaurie Buhne and Robert Brill, with which he developed an intense activity in the city of Los Angeles. In 1982 he returned to Argentina to record a solo work - with a new sound- very influenced by the American pop trends of the time, called "Santaolalla", in which participated Argentine bassist Alfredo Toth (GIT band) and keyboardist Alejandro Lerner. In the music production area, his work was emphasized in "De Ushuaia a La Quiaca" ("From Ushuaia to La Quiaca") -another Argentine mythical musician León Gieco's project- following his same national folk line. Back in Los Angeles, produced records for "Café Tacuba" and "Maldita vecindad" among others, returning once more to Argentina in the middle of the '90 with a second solo work, "GAS" (his name's initials). His works in group production from the USA have turned Santaolalla into a prominent figure in that area, what gave him, besides, the chance to participate in big musical projects for cinema movies with successful results ("Amores perros", "21 Grams", "Diarios de motocicleta" -"The Motorcycle Diaries"), crowned with the Oscar award in March, 2006, by the music of the controversial film "Brokeback Mountain" and in 2007 for his friend Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Babel". This makes him the third composer to win in the Best Original Score two years in a row.- Composer
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Michael Giacchino is an American composer of music for films, television and video games.
Giacchino composed the scores to the television series Lost, Alias and Fringe, the video game series Medal of Honor and Call of Duty and many films such as The Incredibles (2004), Star Trek (2009), Up (2009), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), Jurassic World (2015), Inside Out (2015), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) and Coco (2017).
For his work on Up he earned an Academy Award for Best Original Score.- Composer
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Max Richter was born on 22 March 1966 in Hamelin, Lower Saxony, West Germany. He is a composer and actor, known for Arrival (2016), The Leftovers (2014) and Ad Astra (2019).- Composer
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Christopher Tin was born on May 21st, 1976 in Redwood City, CA to immigrant parents from Hong Kong. He is a two-time Grammy-winning composer, best known for his song 'Baba Yetu' from the video game Civilization IV, which was the first piece of music from a video game ever to win a Grammy award.
He received his undergraduate education at Stanford University and Oxford University, studying Music Composition, Conducting, and English Literature. After winning a Fulbright Scholarship, he continued his studies at the Royal College of Music in London. There, he earned an MMus with Distinction, graduating with the highest marks in his class, and winning the Horovitz Composition Prize. He is also a Sundance Institute fellow.
Aside from his film and video game scores, his concert music has been performed live by many orchestras around the world, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Philharmonia, Metropole Orchestra, in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, and Disney Concert Hall. He is signed to Warner/Chappell Music Publishing, and his sheet music is distributed by Alfred Publishing and Schott/EAM.
He is also an in-demand collaborator, working with artists across a wide-range of musical genres, including Lang Lang, Alan Menken, BT, Ne-Yo, and Trevor Horn.- Music Department
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Henry Jackman has established himself as one of today's top composers by fusing his classical training with his experience as a successful record producer and creator of electronic music.
Jackman grew up in the southeast of England, where he began composing his first symphony at the age of six. He studied classical music at Oxford and sang in the St. Paul's Cathedral Choir-but simultaneously got involved in the underground rave scene and began producing popular electronica music and dance remixes, eventually working with artists such as Seal and The Art of Noise.
In 2006 he caught the attention of film composers Hans Zimmer and John Powell, and began writing additional music for Powell on Kung Fu Panda and then for Zimmer on The Dark Knight, The Da Vinci Code, and The Pirates of the Caribbean films, which rapidly led to scoring blockbuster films on his own. His first solo feature film then came to be 'Monsters v Aliens' directed by Rob Letterman.
"I've spent a lot of time working in the record industry," says Jackman, "and for my money being a film composer is way more fun. You can be working on X-Men, and then a movie set in 17th-century Italy. It's not about showing off what you think is cool or what you want to hear, but 'what is this movie about, and what would best serve it?' That process just leads to strange and remarkable places."
Jackman is known for his recent scores for Marvel Studios' 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier', Showtime's 'The Comey Rule', The Russo Brothers' 'Cherry', as well as 'Jumanji: The Next Level', a continuation of the magical board game adventure story, and 'Detective Pikachu', following the story of the beloved Pikachu Pokémon character starring Ryan Reynolds. His other recent work includes 'Ralph Breaks the Internet', which was nominated for Best Animated Feature. His other diverse credits include Captain America: Civil War, Kong: Skull Island, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, Big Hero 6, and Kingsman: The Golden Circle.- Composer
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A classmate of director Sergio Leone with whom he would form one of the great director/composer partnerships (right up there with Eisenstein & Prokofiev, Hitchcock & Herrmann, Fellini & Rota), Ennio Morricone studied at Rome's Santa Cecilia Conservatory, where he specialized in trumpet. His first film scores were relatively undistinguished, but he was hired by Leone for A Fistful of Dollars (1964) on the strength of some of his song arrangements. His score for that film, with its sparse arrangements, unorthodox instrumentation (bells, electric guitars, harmonicas, the distinctive twang of the jew's harp) and memorable tunes, revolutionized the way music would be used in Westerns, and it is hard to think of a post-Morricone Western score that doesn't in some way reflect his influence. Although his name will always be synonymous with the spaghetti Western, Morricone has also contributed to a huge range of other film genres: comedies, dramas, thrillers, horror films, romances, art movies, exploitation movies - making him one of the film world's most versatile artists. He has written nearly 400 film scores, so a brief summary is impossible, but his most memorable work includes the Leone films, Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers (1966) , Roland Joffé's The Mission (1986), Brian De Palma's The Untouchables (1987) and Giuseppe Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso (1988), plus a rare example of sung opening credits for Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Hawks and the Sparrows (1966).- Composer
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Emmy award-winner and three-time British Academy nominated composer Inon Zur is internationally renowned for his emotionally dynamic original music scores for film, television and blockbuster video game franchises such as 'Fallout', 'Dragon Age', 'Prince of Persia' and 'The Elder Scrolls'.
Zur's iconic themes and avant-garde scores for the 'Fallout' series have been described as "Sophisticated and atmospheric" (Classic FM) and received two British Academy nominations. His best-selling soundtrack for 'Fallout 4' is celebrated as one of the best original video game scores by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, The Game Awards, and Classic FM. Recently his original score for 'The Elder Scrolls: Blades' received top honors at the Hollywood Music In Media Awards.
In film and television, Inon has provided critically acclaimed scores for the Emmy winning documentary Saber Rock as featured on CNN, the suspense thriller Reclaim for Lionsgate and multi-award winning film trailer music for Sony Pictures, Disney-Pixar, Warner Bros., Focus, Universal, New Line Cinema and 20th Century Fox including The Shape of Water (Fox Searchlight Pictures), winner of Best Film Trailer Music at The Mark Awards, and most recently Knives Out (Lionsgate). Classically trained with a flair for powerful, melodic orchestral writing, Inon's music is also celebrated in the concert world. He has also produced and collaborated with artists including Florence + The Machine and is signed to Sony Music as a recording artist with his debut major label album release 'Into The Storm'.- Composer
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Petri Alanko was born on 17 January 1970 in Finland. He is a composer and writer, known for Control (2019), Alan Wake II (2023) and Alan Wake (2010).- Composer
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Eduard Artemyev is a Soviet and Russian composer. He is widely known as the author of music for films by Andrei Tarkovsky, Andrey Konchalovskiy and Nikita Mikhalkov.
Artemyev was born in Novosibirsk. He received his primary musical education at the Moscow Choir School. Later in 1960 he graduated from the Moscow Conservatory. Artemyev became widely known for his work in the cinema. He has composed music for over 150 feature films, documentaries and animated films.- Composer
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Lorne Balfe was born on 23 February 1976 in Inverness, Scotland, UK. He is a composer, known for The Lego Batman Movie (2017), Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) and Black Widow (2021).- Music Department
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Jack Wall is an ASCAP award-winning and BAFTA nominated composer best known for his rich, cinematic scores found within popular video game franchises such as Call of Duty: Black Ops II, III, & IV, Mass Effect I & II, the Myst series, Jade Empire and several other franchises winning multiple awards for his work. Most recently Wall scored the supernatural drama television series Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments airing on Disney's Freeform TV as well as the latest record-breaking entry in the blockbuster Call of Duty series, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. He has also written additional music score for numerous other TV series including the fantasy drama series Reign on the CW and Emerald City on NBC as well as scoring the hi-octane action film Hard Target 2 available on Netflix.
Wall is celebrated among a Hollywood elite of composers invited to score the world's biggest interactive entertainment property, Call of Duty. For Black Ops II he crafted an adrenaline-fueled, deeply emotional and adventurous musical palette that took the blockbuster series in new sonic directions. Black Ops II received the Best Video Game Score Award at the ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards. Reuniting with Treyarch Studios and Activision for Black Ops III, his follow-up score displays the hallmarks of an epic, sophisticated narrative, combining futuristic hybrid sounds, homages to classic WWII orchestral music and even big band and swing numbers created specifically for the popular Zombies campaign. Featuring highlight solo performances from contemporary jazz vocalist Antonia Bennett, daughter of legendary singer Tony Bennett, Black Ops III was nominated GameTrailers' Soundtrack of the Year. Wall's unique approach for Black Ops IV once again breaks from traditional video game scores with an array of brand new swinging jazz numbers, an ethereal new arrangement of the fan-favorite Zombies mode song, "Where Are We Going?" (featuring a children's choir with the Los Angeles Singers and Malukah), as well as an original cinematic score including the heroic orchestral anthem "Alister's Theme," described by Forbes as "One of the series' best yet."
Collaborating with the world's leading game studios, Wall is widely recognized for composing some of the most iconic scores for the medium. Wall created the distinctive musical signature for BioWare's sci-if epic Mass Effect, combining '80s electronica, synthetic instrumentation and futuristic atmospheres. The soundtrack won numerous accolades, while achieving cult status with fans. Wall received British Academy (BAFTA) and Spike TV nominations for his work on Mass Effect 2.
Composing for and conducting a full symphony orchestra and master chorale, Wall first garnered attention with his dramatic score for Ubisoft's Myst III: Exile, receiving universal critical acclaim including several Soundtrack of the Year honors. For the climactic sequel, Myst IV: Revelation, Wall was awarded Music of the Year at the Game Developers Conference.
With Jade Empire, Wall crafted a Chinese and Asian instrumental palette incorporating an "East meets West" approach. Working with authentic Pan-Asian instruments Wall crafted an exotic, percussion-driven score to enhance the mythological Chinese setting. The score was voted Best Original Soundtrack Album by the Game Audio Network Guild.
In addition to his composing achievements, Wall served as Music Director and co-producer for composer/librettist Cindy Shapiro's Psyche: A Modern Rock Opera, an innovative modern retelling of the ancient Greek. He also co-created Video Games Live and served as its Music Director/Conductor from 2005 through 2010 performing with more than sixty of the world's finest orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and London Philharmonia Orchestra.
Wall was co-founder of The Game Audio Network Guild and is a frequent speaker/instructor at various educational institutions such as Columbia College, USC, UCLA, Expressions Center for New Media, The Los Angeles Recording School and Berklee College in Boston.
Continuing to raise the bar for emotional, performance-driven scores at the highest level, Wall's repertoire encompasses a diverse range of musical styles and influences: from ethereal ambience, choral crescendos and heavy tribal orchestra to traditional Asian, Middle-Eastern, Eastern European instrumentation, futuristic electronic soundscapes and big band jazz recorded with the world's top musicians. For more information, visit http://jackwall.net. To listen to his work, visit http://jackwall.net/online-music-reel- Composer
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Audiences worldwide have been captivated by the unique musical stylings of Emmy-winning and Grammy-nominated composer, Mac Quayle.
Quayle scores BBC's upcoming limited series The Pact; FX and Ryan Murphy's Pea-body Award-winning, Golden Globe and Emmy-nominated 80's NYC ball scene drama Pose, starring Billy Porter; Netflix and Ryan Murphy/ Evan Romansky's drama series Ratched, starring Sarah Paulson; HBO's documentary crime series The Vow by Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning directors Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer; FX's Golden Globe winning and Emmy-nominated horror anthology American Horror Story, starring Sarah Paulson and Kathy Bates - Quayle received his first Emmy nomination for his score on American Horror Story: Freak Show; Fox's procedural drama 9-1-1, starring Angela Bassett, which he co-composes with Todd Haberman; and 9-1-1: Lone Star, which he co-composes with both Haberman and Justin Caine Burnett.
Quayle's past credits include USA Network's Golden Globe winning suspense-thriller Mr. Robot, starring Christian Slater and Rami Malek, for which he won an Emmy in 2016; FX's Golden Globe nominated series Feud: Bette and Joan, starring Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon, for which he received two Emmy nominations in 2017 for both the main title and score; Emmy and Golden Globe winning hit series The Assassi-nation of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, starring Penelope Cruz, Edgar Ramirez, Ricky Martin and Darren Criss; and Emmy-winning The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, starring John Travolta, Sarah Paulson and Cuba Gooding Jr; Netflix's The Politician, starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Platt; and more. Quayle received his second consecutive World Soundtrack Award nomination for his work on Feud: Bette and Joan, Mr. Robot and Scream Queens, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Emma Roberts. Quayle, alongside Gustavo Santaolalla and Scott Hanau, were recently nominated at the 2021 BAFTA Games Awards for his music on Naughty Boy/Sony Interactive The Last of Us Part II.
Quayle has written music for over 40 diverse films, television shows, and documentaries. His music for the documentary Autism in Love premiered at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival. Mac's music as an additional composer for Cliff Martinez can be heard in HBO's Emmy-winning The Normal Heart; Film District's Critics Choice Award winning Drive; Warner Bros.'s Contagion; and A24's Spring Breakers. In 2013, Mac was chosen as one of only six composers to participate in Sundance's Music and Sound Design Lab at Skywalker Ranch.
As a producer, re-mixer and keyboardist, Quayle has worked on over 300 releases, 40 #1 Billboard Dance hits, and earned a Grammy nomination for producing Donna Summer's "I Will Go with You." Quayle has been awarded numerous Gold and Platinum records, as well as worked with some of the biggest names in the music business. Mac has created music for Madonna, Whitney Houston, Beyonce, Depeche Mode, Britney Spears, Elvis Presley, Annie Lennox, New Order, and Sting to name a few.
When asked about his career highlights, Quayle responded, "I have been very fortunate to work with so many talented people over the years. However, there is one special moment that stands out for me: playing ping pong with Peter Gabriel at Real World Studios."
Quayle lives, works and plays ping pong in the mountains near Los Angeles.