Jamshied Sharifi is an American composer and musician. He was born in Topeka, Kansas to an Iranian father and an American mother. At an early age, Sharifi was exposed to Jazz and Middle Eastern music by his father and to European classical and church music by his mother. He began to study classical piano at age five and quickly developed a thirst for musical instruction and a desire to improvise. At age nine he began studying guitar and drums, and at age ten added flute.
John Scofield is an American guitarist and composer whose music over a long career has blended jazz, jazz fusion, funk, blues, soul and rock. He first came to mainstream attention in the band of Miles Davis, and has toured and recorded with many prominent jazz artists, including saxophonists Eddie Harris, Dave Liebman, Joe Henderson and Joe Lovano; keyboardists George Duke, Joey DeFrancesco, Herbie Hancock, Larry Goldings and Robert Glasper; fellow guitarists Pat Metheny, John Abercrombie, Pat Martino and Bill Frisell; bassists Marc Johnson and Jaco Pastorius; and drummer Billy Cobham and Dennis Chambers. Outside the world of jazz, he has collaborated with Phil Lesh, Mavis Staples, John Mayer, Medeski Martin & Wood, and Gov’t Mule.
Alan Anthony Silvestri is an American composer and conductor of film and television scores. He has been associated with director Robert Zemeckis since 1984, composing music for all of his feature films including the Back to the Future film series, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump, Cast Away, and The Polar Express. Silvestri also composed many other popular movies, including Predator, The Abyss, Father of the Bride, The Bodyguard, Eraser, The Parent Trap, Stuart Little, The Mummy Returns, Lilo & Stitch, Night at the Museum, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Ready Player One, and several Marvel Cinematic Universe films, including the Avengers films.
Jan Hammer is a Czech-American musician, composer, and record producer. He first gained his most visible audience while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra during the early 1970s, as well as his film scores for television and film including "Miami Vice Theme" and "Crockett's Theme", from the 1980s television program Miami Vice. He has continued to work as both a musical performer and producer.
John Alfred Mandel was an American composer and arranger of popular songs, film music and jazz. The musicians he worked with include Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Anita O'Day, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Diane Schuur and Shirley Horn. He won five Grammy Awards, from 17 nominations; his first nomination was for his debut film score for the multi-nominated 1958 film I Want to Live!
Alf Heiberg Clausen is an American film and television composer. He is best known for his work scoring many episodes of The Simpsons, for which he was the sole composer between 1990 and 2017. Clausen has scored or orchestrated music for more than 30 films and television shows, including Moonlighting, The Naked Gun, ALF and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Clausen received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music in 1996.
Jeff Beal is an American composer of music for film, television, recordings, and the concert hall. Highly regarded as a jazz instrumentalist and versatile composer, Beal creates music that often incorporates a synthesis of improvisatory and composed elements.
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.
David Schwartz is an American composer, known for his scoring of the music for several television series. He composed most of the songs for Arrested Development, and he returned as the series composer for the fourth season, which debuted on Netflix.
Robert Kraft is an American songwriter, film composer, recording artist and record producer. As president of Fox Music from 1994 to 2012, he supervised the music for more than 300 Fox feature films, as well as dozens of TV shows. He co-produced the 2016 Score: A Film Music Documentary about film composers and the evolution of Hollywood film music.
Pinar Toprak is a Turkish-American Emmy-nominated composer, conductor and performer, who specialises in creating thematic scores for everything from superhero sagas and blockbuster comedies to TV series and dramas. With her work on Captain Marvel (2019) and Fortnite, Pinar is the first female composer to score both a film and video game with gross revenues of over $1 billion and $5 billion respectively.
Frederick James Karlin was an American composer of more than 130 scores for feature films and television movies. He also was an accomplished trumpeter adept at playing jazz, blues, classical, rock, and medieval music.
George Letellier is an American jazz pianist and composer, currently living in Luxembourg.
Roger Bellon is a French film, television, theatre and opera composer, conductor, orchestrator and producer.
Douglas Vernon Timm was an American composer and conductor best known for his many music scores, both in television and motion picture films. In a career which was cut short by a tragic event, he composed music for a variety of both television productions as well as motion pictures. His most popular works include music production and music scores to Nightflyers, Terror in the Aisles, as well as many TV series such as Designing Women, Dolphin Cove, The New Mike Hammer, and Simon and Simon.
Vivek Maddala is a four-time Emmy-winning composer who focuses on writing music for feature films, theater and dance productions, and television. He is known for composing music scores for independent movies such as Kaboom, Highway, and the Peabody-winning American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, as well as for silent film restorations for Turner Classic Movies, including a 90-minute score for the Greta Garbo film The Mysterious Lady (2002). Additionally, Maddala writes, produces, and performs as a multi-instrumentalist with various recording artists. He is a Sundance Lab Fellow for film composition, and has had work premiere at the Cannes, Toronto, Berlin, and Sundance film festivals. Maddala has received six Emmy nominations, with four wins, in the category of "Outstanding Music Direction and Composition."
Shawn Michael Patterson is an American composer and songwriter. His most notable work to date is as the songwriter/composer for the song "Everything Is Awesome", written for the Warner Brothers feature film The Lego Movie (2014).
Kristopher Bowers is an American composer and pianist. He has composed scores for films, including Green Book, King Richard, and television series, among them Bridgerton, Mrs. America, Dear White People, and When They See Us.
Randy Klein is an American musician, composer, pianist, author, and educator.
Amanda Jones is an American composer and musician who has composed scores for films, commercials, and television series. She is a member of the indie rock band The Anti-Job and has earned the distinction of becoming the first African American woman nominated in a score category at the Emmys for her work on the Apple TV+ series Home.
