Michael Giacchino
Michael Giacchino (pronounced "Jyah-kee-noh") was born 10th October 1967 in Riverside Township, New Jersey. He started venturing into music at the age of ten, where he spent his time between the cinema and his basement. Creating his own stop motion animation films on his brother's pool table, he found the most enjoyable part of the process was putting music to the pictures.
This later led him to join the School of Visual Arts in New York where he received a major in film production and a minor in history. After graduating, Michael began studying music at the Juilliard School at the L ...read more
Michael Giacchino (pronounced "Jyah-kee-noh") was born 10th October 1967 in Riverside Township, New Jersey. He started venturing into music at the age of ten, where he spent his time between the cinema and his basement. Creating his own stop motion animation films on his brother's pool table, he found the most enjoyable part of the process was putting music to the pictures.
This later led him to join the School of Visual Arts in New York where he received a major in film production and a minor in history. After graduating, Michael began studying music at the Juilliard School at the Lincoln Center. During this time he worked day jobs at the publicity offices for Disney and Universal in New York. Two years later he moved to Disney Studios in Burbank, LA where he started working in their feature film publicity department. Shortly after this he moved again to Disney Interactive, becoming an assistant producer on their various video game productions. He continued to study music in the evenings and at weekends.
His first major composition came in 1997, when newly formed DreamWorks Interactive asked him to score their flagship PlayStation game, The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Based on Steven Spielberg's hit movie of the same name, the console game became the first to have a live orchestral score.
In 1998, Michael was commissioned to write a symphonic piece to celebrate the new millennium. His 25 minute score, named Camden 2000, was performed by the Hattonfield Symphony on May 13th 2000, and helped raise money for the redevelopment of the city.
Michael continued his career writing music for games such as Small Soldiers, Warpath: Jurassic Park, and the hugely popular Medal Of Honor series. Rising director J.J Abrams, a fan of the Medal Of Honor scores, hired Michael to write music for his new show, Alias, opening the door to his wildly successful career in TV scoring.
After composing scores for other video games such as Call Of Duty and Secret Weapons Over Normandy, three series of Alias, and Abrams' second hit show, Lost, Michael was offered his first big film prospect - Disney and Pixar's The Incredibles.
Michael's relationship with J.J. Abrams continued into the area of film, where he scored Abrams' first feature film, Mission: Impossible III. He has also continued to work closely with Disney, writing music for the Space Mountain rides at Disneyland, scoring movie Ratatouille for The Incredibles director Brad Bird (and earning his first Oscar nomination) as well as several Pixar shorts such as One Man Band and Lifted.
Video game and TV scores continued to be a large part of Michael's career. His more recent credits include Turning Point: Fall Of Liberty and Medal Of Honor Airborne, as well as writing main themes for Black and Mercenaries: Playground Of Destruction, handing the main scoring duties over to his former assistant, Chris Tilton.
He has also been involved with the music to many video game tie-ins such as Lost Via Domus, The Incredibles, Ratatouille and Star Trek: D.A.C, allowing his creative team such as Chris Tilton, Chad Seiter and Andrea Datzman to re-arrange and re-orchestra his original music.
Michael also scored the pilot episode of sci-fi series Fringe (also by Abrams), before handing the show over to Chad Seiter and Chris Tilton.
2009 proved itself to be Michael's busiest and most successful year yet, including serving as Musical Director at the Oscars, scoring four feature films including Star Trek and Up, three short movies, Disney Christmas special Prep And Landing and the fifth season of Lost. Michael went on to win a Golden Globe, two Grammys a Bafta and an Oscar for his music for Up.
Michael is currently wrapping up the sixth and final season of Lost, and will be attending the sixth International Film Music Confrence in Ubeda, Spain in July. His next feature film scores include CGI animation Arthur Christmas and Andrew Stanton's John Carter Of Mars.
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