Joel McNeely

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Joel McNeely [ dʒoʊ (ə) l mæk nilɪ ] (* 1959 in Madison , Wisconsin ) is an American film music composer. In addition, he has re-recorded numerous older film scores, especially with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, so that since 1992 he can look back on over 100 recordings and compositions. In 1993 he won an Emmy for his music for The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones .

Career

McNeely's parents were both active in the fields of music and theater, so McNeely played the piano, saxophone, bass and flute as a child. An encounter with Elmer Bernstein ultimately inspired him to become a film music composer. At the age of 14 he was accepted into the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, where he specialized in composition and flute playing. After graduating there, he studied jazz at the University of Miami . Although there was still no degree, McNeely toured the world and played with musicians such as Tony Bennett , Peggy Lee , Al Green , Melissa Manchester , Chuck Mangione , Bobby Caldwell , Jaco Pastorius and Dave Leibman .

At the Eastman School of Music in Rochester , New York , where he studied with Christopher Rouse , he finally obtained a master's degree in composition. During his studies McNeely was strongly influenced by his mentor Rayburn Wright, especially as a composer and orchestrator . Upon graduation, McNeely moved to Los Angeles , where he began working as a studio musician in the film industry. A year later, however, there was frustration as McNeely saw himself limited in his possibilities as a composer. Together with his wife Margaret, he rented a studio from their savings and produced a demo recording . Created in just one night, the tape soon circulated in Hollywood. He was invited to the Sundance Film Institute in a composers course of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers participate where young talents are taught to agents. In fact, McNeely was able to convince with his skills and began his career as a film music composer for television, including the Disney series Splash too , the TV series The parent trap and Davy Crocket , the TV musical Polly and Steven Spielberg's Tiny Toon adventure .

In the early 1990s, George Lucas also became aware of McNeely and engaged him for his TV series The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones , for which McNeely was awarded an Emmy in 1993. Lucas later relied on McNeely for his production Radioland Murders - Wahnsinn auf Air (1994) and again for the soundtrack of the multimedia project Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (1996). But two years earlier, McNeely made the leap from television to film in 1994 with the soundtrack for Iron Will - The Will to Win . Others followed, with which McNeely was able to further establish himself, including action films like Deadly Speed (1994), adventure films like Gold Diggers - The Secret of Bear Mountain (1995) and TV adaptations like Flipper (1996).

Since then, McNeely has also drawn attention to himself by re-recording old film music compositions for the record label Varèse Sarabande . In 1995 the new recording of Bernard Herrmann's music for Fahrenheit 451 was published, followed in the years after by Vertigo - From the Realm of the Dead and Psycho . To date, McNeely can look back on almost 30 recordings, most recently he published the editing of The Day on Which the Earth Stood Still .

After the turn of the millennium, McNeely returned partially to television to work on James Cameron's television series Dark Angel . Like George Lucas, Cameron continued to rely on McNeely and signed him for his IMAX 3D documentary The Spirits of the Titanic . He was then hired for some Disney sequels such as Peter Pan: New Adventures in Neverland (2002) and Mulan 2 (2004).

McNeely lives in Hidden Hills , California with his wife, violinist Margaret Batjer, and their two children .

Honors

Joel McNeely won an Emmy in 1993 for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Musical Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore ) in The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones (1992, episode Young Indiana Jones And The Scandal Of 1920 ). In addition, he was nominated for Outstanding Individual Music Direction for the episode Young Indiana Jones And The Mystery Of The Blues .

In 1998, McNeely won his second award to date. He received the ASCAP Award for his musical contribution to the film Air Force One (1997) . In 2003 he was nominated for an Annie Award for his work on Peter Pan: New Adventures in Neverland (2002) .

Filmography (selection)

Film music

watch TV

New recordings

Web links

personal data
SURNAME McNeely, Joel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film music composer
DATE OF BIRTH 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Madison , Wisconsin , USA