John Debney | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Birth name | John Cardon Debney |
Born | Glendale, California, U.S. | August 18, 1956
Genres | Film scores, soundtracks |
Occupation(s) | Composer, conductor |
Instrument(s) | Piano, guitar |
Years active | 1977–present |
Website | www |
John Cardon Debney (born August 18, 1956) is an American composer and conductor of film, television, and video game scores. [1] His work encompasses a variety of mediums and genres, including comedy, horror, science fiction, thriller, fantasy and action-adventure. He is a long-time collaborator of The Walt Disney Company, having written music for their films, television series, and theme parks. He has also collaborated with film directors such as Jon Favreau, Garry Marshall, Tom Shadyac, Peter Hyams, John A. Davis, Brad Anderson, Howard Deutch, Mark Dindal, Robert Rodriguez, and Paul Tibbitt.
Debney has been the recipient of three Primetime Emmy Awards, and an Academy Award nomination for his score for Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004).
The son of Disney Studios producer Louis Debney ( Zorro , The Mickey Mouse Club ), John was born and raised in Glendale, California, nearby to Disney. He began guitar lessons at age six and played in rock bands in college. Debney earned his B.A. degree in Music Composition from the California Institute of Arts in 1979.
After ending his career with Disney, Debney worked for Mike Post. Debney furthered his hands-on training by working with Hanna-Barbera composer Hoyt Curtin. After this, Debney went on to score television projects as diverse as Disneyland , Star Trek: The Next Generation , Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , SeaQuest DSV , A Pup Named Scooby-Doo , The Cape , The Lazarus Man , Piggsburg Pigs! , The Further Adventures of SuperTed , Doctor Who , Cagney and Lacey , Tiny Toon Adventures , The Young Riders , The New Yogi Bear Show , Police Academy: The Animated Series , Fame , Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future , Dragon's Lair , Freshman Dorm , Pop Quiz and Dink, the Little Dinosaur , for which he won an Emmy for Best Main Title. In the early 1990s, Debney began to score indie films and Disneyland attractions. In 1991, Debney composed the music for Phantom Manor and It's a Small World (also used at Disneyland from 1993 to 2002) in Disneyland Paris and SpectroMagic at Magic Kingdom. In 1993, he scored his first studio feature, the Disney comedy Hocus Pocus starring Bette Midler.
In 1994, Debney wrote Friends Forever with Greg Scelsa from Greg & Steve's album We All Live Together, Vol. 5
Debney has since gone on to have a career composing scores for many films including: Cats & Dogs , The Passion of the Christ , Bruce Almighty , I Know What You Did Last Summer , Elf , Sin City , Chicken Little , Liar Liar , Spy Kids , The Scorpion King , The Princess Diaries [2] and Predators . [3]
Debney has also composed scores for the video games Lair and The Sims Medieval . In 2010, he composed the theme music for the Nickelodeon television series Supah Ninjas .
He composed some of Disney Parks's Nighttime Spectaculars, including: World Of Color Celebrate! in Disney's California Adventure, The Magic, The Memories And You! and Celebrate the Magic in Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom and Celebrate! Tokyo Disneyland in Tokyo Disneyland, as well as an arrangement of "When You Wish Upon a Star" as a fanfare for the Walt Disney Pictures logo from 1985 to 2006.
Year | Title | Director(s) | Studio(s) | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
1987 | The Wild Pair | Beau Bridges | Trans World Entertainment | Composed with Michel Colombier |
1988 | The Further Adventures of Tennessee Buck | David Keith | — | |
Seven Hours to Judgment | Beau Bridges | — | ||
Not Since Casanova | Brett Thompson | The Brett Thompson Company West Productions | — | |
1989 | Trenchcoat in Paradise | Martha Coolidge | Finnegan/Pinchuk Productions MGM Television | — |
Year | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|
2007 | Lair | — |
2011 | The Sims Medieval | — |
2018 | Madden NFL 19 | — |
This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources .(August 2021) |
The Walt Disney Company has produced an anthology television series since 1954 under several titles and formats. The program's current title, The Wonderful World of Disney, was used from 1969 to 1979 and again from 1991 onward. The program moved among the Big Three television networks in its first four decades, but has aired on ABC since 1997 and Disney+ since 2020.
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer known for his work in film and television scoring. He composed scores for five films in the Star Trek franchise and three in the Rambo franchise, as well as for films including Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Patton, Papillon, Chinatown, The Omen, Alien, Poltergeist, The Secret of NIMH, Medicine Man, Gremlins, Hoosiers, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Air Force One, L.A. Confidential, Mulan, and The Mummy. He also composed the fanfares accompanying the production logos used by multiple major film studios, and music for the Disney attraction Soarin'.
Basil Konstantine Poledouris was an American composer, conductor, and orchestrator of film and television scores, best known for his long-running collaborations with directors John Milius and Paul Verhoeven. Among his works are scores for the films Conan the Barbarian (1982), Red Dawn (1984), Iron Eagle (1986), RoboCop (1987), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Free Willy (1993), Starship Troopers (1997) and Les Misérables (1998).
Jean-Christophe Beck is a Canadian television and film score composer and conductor. He is best known for his collaborations with Disney and its subsidiaries, which include composing the soundtracks of The Muppets (2011) and Muppets Most Wanted (2014), Frozen (2013) and its 2019 sequel, the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Ant-Man (2015), Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) as well as the TV miniseries WandaVision (2021) and Hawkeye (2021) for Marvel Studios, and Free Guy (2021) for 20th Century Studios, as well as Disney’s 100th anniversary logo.
Richard Morton Sherman is an American songwriter who specialized in musical films with his brother Robert B. Sherman. According to the official Walt Disney Company website and independent fact checkers, "the Sherman Brothers were responsible for more motion picture musical song scores than any other songwriting team in film history."
Michael Giacchino is an American composer of music for film, television, and video games. He has received many accolades for his work, including an Oscar for Up (2009), an Emmy for Lost (2004), and three Grammy Awards.
Joey Newman is an American film composer, orchestrator, arranger and conductor working in the fields of film and television.
Ronald Jones is an American composer. He has composed music for various TV shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation, DuckTales, American Dad!, and Family Guy. Along with the creator of The Fairly OddParents, Butch Hartman, he composed the show's theme song and music for its episodes. He currently resides in Stanwood, Washington, where he owns Sky Muse studios - a recording facility designed for music recording and post-production.
Norman Dale "Buddy" Baker was an American composer who scored many Disney films, including The Apple Dumpling Gang in 1975, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again in 1979, The Shaggy D.A. in 1976, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in 1977, and The Fox and the Hound in 1981. He also composed scores for Disney theme park attractions, including Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln and The Haunted Mansion.
Joel McNeely is an American composer, conductor, arranger, musician, lyricist, and record producer. A protégé of composer Jerry Goldsmith, he is best known for his film and television scores. He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series for his work on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. He frequently collaborates with Seth MacFarlane and contributes to various projects by The Walt Disney Company.
John Everett Beal is an American composer and conductor known for his work in the American film industry. He has conducted for major recording artists ranging from Olivia Newton-John to Deadmau5, movies in concert such as Star Wars, Toy Story, Home Alone, Rocketman and the Harry Potter series, is the principal conductor of the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra, is considered by the New York Times as the pioneer of original scores for film trailer music, and has composed the music for numerous television series and films.
Richard Bellis is an American film and television music composer, former Composers and Lyricists Guild of America (CLGA) president, former ATAS governor, USC lecturer, musical director and former actor.
John Warrington Van Tongeren is an American keyboardist and composer for films and television.
Mark McKenzie is an American film composer and orchestrator.
The Sweatbox is a 2002 American documentary film directed by Trudie Styler, which documents the production of the Walt Disney Pictures film The Emperor's New Groove. Utilizing behind-the-scenes footage and interviews, it illustrates the slow and painful transformation of the original version of the film to the finished product, with a focus on Sting's work on the soundtrack. The documentary's major theme is creative-executive conflicts.
Frank Serafine was an American motion picture sound designer, sound editor, and composer. He is best known for his work as a sound editor and sound designer on films including the Star Trek and Tron series, The Addams Family, The Fog, Poltergeist II: The Other Side, Robot Jox, Ice Pirates, Hoodwinked 2, Orgazmo, The Lawnmower Man, Virtuosity, and Field of Dreams. He won an Emmy Award for Sound Design on The Day After (1983) and an Academy Award for Best Sound for The Hunt for Red October (1990).
Louis Febre is a Mexican born composer, best known for his work on the television series Smallville. He also won an Emmy Award for his score to The Cape in 1997.
Mickey Mouse is an American animated television series produced by Disney Television Animation. Featuring Disney cartoon characters Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Goofy and Pluto in contemporary settings such as Paris, Venice, Tokyo and New York, the series has the slapstick feel of the earliest Mickey Mouse shorts while providing a modern update, and "presents Mickey in a broad range of humorous situations that showcase his pluck and rascality, along with his long-beloved charm and good heartedness". The animation is provided by Mercury Filmworks.
Walt Disney and the 1964 World's Fair is a 2009 five-CD box set compiling music and audio from Disney's attractions at the 1964 New York World's Fair:
The Jungle Book (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the 2016 eponymous Disney film, which is a live-action/CGI adaptation of the 1967 animated film of the same name. Directed by Jon Favreau, the film features musical score composed and conducted by his frequent collaborator John Debney, mostly drawing from George Bruns' original music. Few of the tracks were incorporated from the 1967 film's soundtrack written by Sherman Brothers and Terry Gilkyson. The score was recorded at Los Angeles, California and New Orleans, with prominent players and large orchestral members recording the score. Walt Disney Records released the film's soundtrack on April 15, 2016. It received positive reviews for the musical score, as well as incorporated songs from the 1967 film, being well received. John Debney missed the nomination for Academy Award for Best Original Score, though at the Hollywood Music in Media Awards, he won Best Original Score – Sci-Fi/Fantasy Film as well as receiving a Satellite Award for Best Original Score nomination.