Bear McCreary

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Bear McCreary
Born February 17, 1979
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Occupation(s) Composer
Years active 1998–present
Label(s) La La Land Records

Bear McCreary is a classically trained composer and musician living in Los Angeles, California. He is best known for his work on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series.

Contents

[edit] Biography

McCreary spent most of his formative years in Bellingham, Washington. He studied under the renowned film score composer Elmer Bernstein at the USC Thornton School of Music, during which time he reconstructed and re-orchestrated Bernstein's 1963 score for Kings of the Sun. Their collaboration allowed for the complete score to be available as a soundtrack album for the first time in forty years.[1]

From 1998 until 2005, McCreary built up a significant body of work scoring short films, including Jon Chu's musical When the Kids Are Away. McCreary is a trained pianist and a self-taught accordionist, and plays in the avant-jazz band 17 Billion Miles of DNA.[2]

[edit] Battlestar Galactica and Caprica

In 2003, McCreary worked under primary composer Richard Gibbs on the 3-hour miniseries which served as a pilot for the re-imagined series of Battlestar Galactica. When the show was picked up, Gibbs opted not to devote full time to the regular series' production, and McCreary became the sole composer. He worked on the series until it reached its conclusion in 2009, scoring over 70 episodes. To date, four Battlestar Galactica soundtrack albums have been released, and have garnered a great deal of critical acclaim[3][4] and commercial success. The soundtracks for season two and three ranked amongst Amazon.com's Top 30 Music Sales on their first days of release.[1]

McCreary will also compose for Caprica, a series set in the fictional Battlestar Galactica universe.

[edit] Other work

McCreary is currently the composer for the television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Eureka. He has also composed the scores for several direct-to-DVD features, including Rest Stop, Rest Stop 2: Don't Look Back and Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, and is working on the forthcoming video game Dark Void.[5]

[edit] Albums

Title Type Released Tracks Notes
Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries Television Soundtrack 16 March 2004 26 Credited for 8 tracks
Battlestar Galactica: Season One Television Soundtrack 21 June 2005 30
Battlestar Galactica: Season Two Television Soundtrack 20 June 2006 23
Rest Stop Motion Picture Soundtrack 12 December 2006 17
Wrong Turn 2 Motion Picture Soundtrack 18 September 2007 16
Battlestar Galactica: Season Three Television Soundtrack 23 October 2007 21
Eureka Television Soundtrack 26 August 2008 28
Rest Stop: Don't Look Back Motion Picture Soundtrack 21 October 2008 20
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Television Soundtrack 16 December 2008 24
Caprica Television Soundtrack 16 June 2009 18
Battlestar Galactica: Season Four Television Soundtrack 21 July 2009 34 2-disc edition

McCreary has also announced plans for an album combining the scores of the Battlestar Galactica TV movies Razor and The Plan.[6]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b "Bear McCreary: Biography" (in English). Bear McCreary's Official Site. http://www.bearmccreary.com. Retrieved on 2009-04-13. 
  2. ^ ScoreKeeper (2006-06-07). "ScoreKeeper interviews BATTLESTAR GALACTICA'S Bear McCreary!!!". Ain't It Cool News. http://www.aintitcool.com/?q=node/23532. Retrieved on 2007-02-18. 
  3. ^ Alan Sepinwall (2008-06-22). "Sepinwall on TV: Michael Giacchino and Bear McCreary, score keepers". The Star-Ledger. http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2008/06/sepinwall_on_tv_michael_giacch.html. Retrieved on 2009-03-18. 
  4. ^ Maureen Ryan (2008-06-16). "'Battlestar Galactica' provides some Earth-shattering 'Revelations'". Chicago Tribune. http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2008/06/battlestar-ga-1.html. Retrieved on 2009-03-18. 
  5. ^ Ocampo, Jason (April 2, 2009). "Galactica Composer Makes Video Game Debut" (in English). IGN. http://pc.ign.com/articles/969/969125p1.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-03. 
  6. ^ McCreary, Bear (March 27, 2009). "Soundtrack Album Updates" (in English). Bear's Battlestar Blog. http://www.bearmccreary.com/blog/?p=1819#more-1819. Retrieved on 2009-04-12. 

[edit] External links


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