On Morricone Youth this weekend, host Devon E. Levins will welcome onto the program acclaimed film, television and video game soundtrack composer Bear McCreary for an exclusive interview and in-depth listen to his music.
At the ripe old age of 24, Bear McCreary was launched into pop culture with his score to Sci Fi Channel's hit, Battlestar Galactica. Four seasons and seventy-five episodes later, Galactica is universally revered, having won the prestigious Peabody Award and special recognition from the United Nations, establishing himself as a major creative force in the industry. Io9.com declared Bear McCreary one of the Ten Best Science Fiction Composers of all time, listing him alongside legends John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith and Bernard Herrmann. He was the only composer under 50 on the list, (he is now 32). Teaming with renowned musicians such as Steve Bartek and Vatos Hernandez of Oingo Boingo, McCreary created the Battlestar Galactica Orchestra which he has conducted before audiences in sold-out venues around Southern California and, in 2010, Spain playing with the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra and Choir for a massive concert in the world-renowned Tenerife Auditorium.
McCreary's unique combination of atypical instrumental background (he is a professional accordionist) with rigorous classical training (degrees in Composition and Recording Arts from the prestigious USC Thornton School of Music) prepared him to write for quirky, off-kilter ensembles or symphonic orchestras. Or both at once. Among the select protégés of the late Elmer Bernstein (The Magnificent Seven, The Silencers, Man With the Golden Arm, Ghostbusters), McCreary worked closely with the film music legend for nearly a decade. Working from Bernstein's own hand-written pencil sketches, McCreary completely reconstructed and re-orchestrated Bernstein's 1963 score for Kings of the Sun, starring Yul Brynner. Elmer Bernstein himself conducted McCreary's Kings concert suite in performances around the world. The collaboration resulted in the first time the complete score became available as a soundtrack album in forty years.
Bear McCreary has provided unique and critically acclaimed scores for FOX's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the NBC medical drama Trauma, and SyFy Channel's hit series Eureka and Caprica. He also provided an unprecendented live orchestral score for FOX's comic-book action series Human Target, recording with the "largest group of musicians to play on a live-action TV series in years." In the summer of 2010, McCreary scored his first theatrical feature film, Step Up 3D, for Touchstone Pictures. McCreary's other feature film work includes Warner Bros.' Rest Stop (2006), its successful sequel Rest Stop: Don't Look Back (2008), and Twentieth Century Fox's Wrong Turn 2 (2007). He most recently scored The Walking Dead, AMC's adaptation of the beloved comic book, collaborating with writer/director Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) and producer Gale Ann Hurd (Aliens, Terminator). He is currently composing a full orchestral score to NBC's superhero drama The Cape.
Listen live or to the archive HERE starting at 2pm ET on Sunday!
Devon E. Levins
Morricone Youth
Sundays 2:00pm-4:00pm ET
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