Paul Hepker (born in Harare, Zimbabwe on 17 December 1967) is a South African composer, musical director, pianist, best known for composing the score (with Mark Kilian) for the film Tsotsi, which won the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards in 2005. Hepker and Kilian also wrote the score for Rendition, the Gavin Hood film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon and Meryl Streep amongst others. Hepker and Kilian also co-composed the score for "The Bird Can’t Fly" by Dutch director Threes Anna. Hepker wrote the music for the AIDs documentary "Into the Light" which featured the voice of Kenyan artist Ayub Ogada.
In the 1990s Hepker toured extensively as pianist/keyboardist with Shirley Bassey, Johnny Clegg and many talented South African artists including Vusi Mahlasela, Vicky Sampson, MarcAlex and Yvonne Chaka Chaka.
A classically trained pianist (taught by Adolph Hallis) and multi-instrumentalist, Hepker lived and worked in South Africa as a musical director and composer – doing jingles, musicals and TV shows when not off touring the world. He was a successful musical director of stage productions of Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat for PACT at the State Theatre in Pretoria and The Theatre on the Track in Kyalami, where he also co-devised and musically directed Heaven Can't Wait and California Dreamin'. In the mid-1990s he had a pop duo called 'zelig' (with dyna-mite vocalist Gabriel).
Paul moved to Hollywood in 1997, where he now writes for film, TV and stage. Hepker has composed the music for numerous Discovery Channel series – including the wildly popular Alaskan crab-fishing shows: "Deadliest Catch" and "Deadliest Season". Other series include "Impact", "Crash Files", "Frontline Firefighters", "Iditarod", "Raw Nature" and "Shark U". [1] [ better source needed ]
Daniel Robert Elfman is an American film composer, singer, songwriter, and musician. He came to prominence as the lead singer and primary songwriter for the new wave band Oingo Boingo in the early 1980s. Since scoring his first studio film in 1985, Elfman has garnered international recognition for composing over 100 feature film scores, as well as compositions for television, stage productions, and the concert hall.
Steve Brown is a British composer, lyricist, record producer, and arranger.
William Conti is an American composer and conductor, best known for his film scores, including Rocky, The Karate Kid, For Your Eyes Only, Dynasty, and The Right Stuff, which earned him an Academy Award for Best Original Score. He also received nominations in the Best Original Song category for "Gonna Fly Now" from Rocky and for the title song of For Your Eyes Only. He was the musical director at the Academy Awards a record nineteen times.
The Sherman Brothers were an American songwriting duo that specialized in musical films, made up of brothers Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman. Together they received various accolades including two Academy Awards and three Grammy Awards. They received nominations for a Laurence Olivier Award, a BAFTA Award, and five Golden Globe Awards. In 1976, they received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the National Medal of the Arts in 2008.
Marc Shaiman is an American composer and lyricist for films, television, and theatre, best known for his collaborations with lyricist and director Scott Wittman and director Rob Reiner. Shaiman has received numerous accolades including a Grammy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Tony Award. He has also received seven Academy Awards nominations.
Alfred Newman was an American composer, arranger, and conductor of film music. From his start as a music prodigy, he came to be regarded as a respected figure in the history of film music. He won nine Academy Awards and was nominated 45 times, contributing to the extended Newman family being the most Academy Award-nominated family, with a collective 92 nominations in various music categories.
Terence Oliver Blanchard is an American trumpeter, pianist and composer. He started his career in 1982 as a member of the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, then The Jazz Messengers. He has composed more than forty film scores and performed on more than fifty. A frequent collaborator with director Spike Lee, he has been nominated for two Academy Awards for composing the scores for Lee's films BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Da 5 Bloods (2020). He has won five Grammy Awards from fourteen nominations.
Tsotsi is a 2005 crime drama film written and directed by Gavin Hood and produced by Peter Fudakowski. It is an adaptation of the novel Tsotsi by Athol Fugard, and is a South African/UK co-production. Set in the Alexandra slum in Johannesburg, South Africa, it stars Presley Chweneyagae as David/Tsotsi, a young street thug who steals a car only to discover a baby in the back seat. It also features Kenneth Nkosi, Jerry Mofokeng, and Rapulana Seiphemo in supporting roles.
John Waldo Green was an American songwriter, composer, musical arranger, conductor and pianist. He was given the nickname "Beulah" by colleague Conrad Salinger. His most famous song was one of his earliest, "Body and Soul" from the revue Three's a Crowd. Green won four Academy Awards for his film scores and a fifth for producing a short musical film, and he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972. He was also honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Richard Neville Hartley is an English composer, best known for his work on The Rocky Horror Show. He grew up in Holmfirth.
Ernö Rapée was a Hungarian-born American symphonic conductor in the first half of the 20th century whose prolific career spanned both classical and popular music. His most famous tenure was as the head conductor of the Radio City Symphony Orchestra, the resident orchestra of the Radio City Music Hall, whose music was also heard by millions over the air.
Frank McNamara is an internationally known arranger, conductor, composer, and pianist from Ireland.
Paul Atherstone Grabowsky is an Australian pianist and composer, founder of the Australian Art Orchestra.
Ken Bichel is an American actor, composer, conductor, pianist, and synthesizer musician.
Robert Eria Telson is an American composer, songwriter, and pianist best known for his work in musical theater and film, for which he has received Tony, Pulitzer, and Academy Award nominations.
Paul Englishby is a film and theatre composer, orchestrator, conductor and pianist. He is best known for his Emmy Award-winning jazz score for David Hare's Page Eight, his orchestral score for the Oscar nominated An Education, his BAFTA nominated score for the BBC's Luther and his many theatre scores for the Royal Shakespeare Company, with whom Paul is an associated artist.
Brian Keane is an American composer, music producer, and guitarist. Keane has been described as "a musician's musician, a composer's composer, and one of the most talented producers of a generation" by Billboard magazine.
Allan Zavod was an Australian pianist, composer, jazz musician and occasional conductor whose career was mainly in America.
Eye in the Sky is a 2015 British thriller film starring Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman, and Barkhad Abdi. Directed by Gavin Hood and written by Guy Hibbert, the film explores the ethical challenges of drone warfare. Filming began in South Africa in September 2014.
Kyle Shepherd is one of South Africa's leading pianists, film and theatre composers. As a film composer he has scored Netflix hit TV series all of which reached the Netflix Global top 10 in viewership. As a performing pianist Kyle has released 7 albums as a leader and performed in 32 countries around the world in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, Théâtre du Châtelet (Paris), The Barbican (London), The Sydney Opera House and over 50 concerts on 11 tours to Japan.