Bear McCreary

Bear McCreary
McCreary in 2009
Background information
Born	(1979-02-17) February 17, 1979 Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States
Genres	Film score, orchestral
Occupation(s)	Composer, Conductor
Years active	1998–present
Labels	La La Land Records, Sparks and Shadows

Bear McCreary (born February 17, 1979) is an American composer and musician living in Los Angeles, California. He is best known for his work on the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series and for the TV series Outlander and The Walking Dead.

McCreary won an Emmy for his main title of Da Vinci's Demons.^[1] His most recent Emmy nomination was in 2015 for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series for season one of Outlander.^[2]

Personal life

McCreary was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and spent most of his formative years in Bellingham, Washington. He is the son of author Laura Kalpakian and professor Jay McCreary of University of Hawaii. He is of Irish and Armenian descent.

McCreary earned degrees in Composition and Recording Arts from the USC Thornton School of Music, and is a classically trained pianist and self-taught accordionist.^[3] He studied under the renowned film score composer Elmer Bernstein during which time he reconstructed and reorchestrated 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 40 years.^[4]

He has also directed and produced several music videos for his brother Brendan McCreary's band, Young Beautiful in a Hurry.^[5]

McCreary is married to singer/songwriter Raya Yarbrough, with whom he worked on the music of Battlestar Galactica, Defiance, Da Vinci's Demons, and several other projects.^[6][7] They have a daughter together named Sonatine, after the musical term sonatina.^[8]

Career

Television

Battlestar Galactica and Caprica

In 2003, McCreary worked under primary composer Richard Gibbs on the three-hour miniseries which served as a pilot for the reimagined 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, six Battlestar Galactica soundtrack albums have been released, and have garnered a great deal of critical acclaim^[9][10] and commercial success. The soundtracks for seasons two and three ranked amongst amazon.com's Top 30 Music Sales on their first days of release.^[4]

McCreary composed for Caprica, a prequel series set in the fictional Battlestar Galactica universe. On February 18, 2012, McCreary announced that he would compose the score to the two-hour pilot movie Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome.

Human Target

Bear provided the score for the series Human Target (based on the comic book of the same name). The pilot episode and main theme score had been recorded with a full orchestra.^[11] The series has the distinction of having one of the largest orchestras on television.

The score to the finale of season one, "Christopher Chance," used the largest orchestra ever assembled for episodic television, and he took the opportunity to rerecord the main title theme with a new orchestration with this larger ensemble.

In July 2010, he received his first Emmy nomination for the Human Target main title.^[12]

In a post on his blog on July 25, 2010, McCreary announced the new creative leadership brought in for season two had not asked him to return for it, and he would be leaving the series.^[13]

The Walking Dead and The Cape

During Comic-Con 2010, Bear McCreary attended panels for AMC's The Walking Dead and NBC's The Cape to announce he would be composing the score for both television series.^[14][15]

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

On July 15, 2013, McCreary announced that he will compose the score for ABC's series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.^[16] On September 4, 2015, McCreary released the official Agents of SHIELD soundtrack publicly.^[17]

Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem – A Klok Opera

McCreary served as orchestral producer for the rock opera Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem airing on Adult Swim on October 27, 2013. This is a continuation of the Metalocalypse universe following the band Dethklok. The music features a 50-piece orchestra. The soundtrack was released on October 29, 2013.^[18]

Films

McCreary made his theatrical feature film scoring debut with Step Up 3D^[19] and has scored several direct-to-video features, including Rest Stop, Rest Stop: Don't Look Back, and Wrong Turn 2: Dead End.

Bear has scored three films with director Joe Lynch (of Wrong Turn 2), the latest being Everly which includes "Silent Night", a duet with his spouse, Raya Yarbrough.^[20] McCreary's latest feature film is 10 Cloverfield Lane, released March 11, 2016.

Video games

McCreary made an eight-bit rendition of the Dark Void theme, which was, originally, an April fools joke. However, the theme was used for the prequel, Dark Void Zero.^[21] He composed all the songs in an eight-bit fashion by connecting the wires on an actual NES console and cartridge to create authenticity.

He arranged James Rolfe's The Angry Video Game Nerd "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" parody "You’re a Mean One, Mr. Nerd" for the 2010 Christmas special, with orchestra and eight-bit audio elements.^[22]

McCreary also performed with his orchestra band live at Sony's E3 2016 press conference throughout the show and was confirmed to compose the score of the new God of War game.^[23]

Discography

Albums

Film soundtracks

Television soundtracks

Video game soundtracks

Singles

Other appearances

Works

Film

Television

Video games

Awards and nominations

References

External links

• Bear McCreary at the Internet Movie Database
• Official website
• MAFgest 2016 interview
• Audio Interview on GeeksOn!
• "Of Duduks and Dylan: Negotiating Music and the Aural Space in Battlestar Galactica'', by Eftychia Papanikolaou; chapter in Cylons in America: Critical Studies of Battlestar Galactica, edited by Tiffany Potter and C. W. Marshall, 224-236. New York and London: Continuum, 2007.