Brian Tyler (composer)

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Brian Tyler is a composer who has written, arranged, and conducted musical scores for film. His scores include the William Friedkin directed The Hunted and the 2005 supernatural action film Constantine. He is also signed with Sony Music as a songwriter. He recently scored the film The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and he is scoring Bug by William Friedkin and the Nicolas Cage starrer Time to Kill for a 2007 release. Tyler is considered to be one of the top young composers in film today.

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[edit] Background and musical work

Brian Tyler is a graduate of Harvard University and prior to writing his first movie score, he was already composing and playing his own concert pieces in the United States and Russia. He is a multi-instrumentalist who plays piano, classical percussion, guitar, bass, bouzouki, mandolin, keyboards, and drums. Over the years he has played in many orchestras, ensembles, choirs, and in a number of rock bands and artists such as Elton John, Foo Fighter's drummer Taylor Hawkins, and Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash. Brian is also an accomplished symphonic conductor and conducts his own scores.

After hearing some of Tyler's music, film composer and 20th Century Fox's President of Music Robert Kraft[1], encouraged Tyler to pursue a career in film scoring. Tyler was also inspired by his grandfather Walter H. Tyler, who was an Academy Award-winning art director for films such as "The Ten Commandments", "Shane", and "Sabrina".

Tyler's first professional scoring and songwriting assignment for the 1997 film Bartender led to interest from the producers of Six-String Samurai. Tyler wrote Six-String Samurai's score and composed and performed a song ("On My Way to Vegas") that accompanied the film's end credits.

Since then, Tyler has written more than 30 scores, including the 2001 award winning film Frailty and Disney's uplifting "The Greatest Game Ever Played, both directed by Bill Paxton. "Well, the first film released that I scored was Six String Samurai, but it was Frailty that helped get me some more exposure," Tyler said in an interview with SoundtrackNet in March 2005.[2] Director William Friedkin saw "Frailty" at the theater and called Brian in to score the action film "The Hunted" the following day.

Tyler scored a succession of big-budget films following Frailty, including The Hunted starring Benicio del Toro and Tommy Lee Jones, Timeline directed by Richard Donner, and Constantine based on the Hellblazer comic books.

Tyler also scored two episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise, and composed the score for Children of Dune based on the books by Frank Herbert. He wrote the 3 hour score for Children of Dune over a span of one month, coinciding with his work on Darkness Falls.

For Children of Dune Tyler played all wood and percussion instruments (including instruments he had built himself) and performed all male vocals. He also researched Herbert's Dune books and deciphered the fictional Fremen language in order to write the song "Inama Nushif" for the score.

Brian Tyler has collaborated with director Justin Lin three times for the military drama "Annapolis", "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift", and "Finishing the Game". He has scored each of Bill Paxton's, William Friedkin's, Greg Yaitanes', and Henry Bromell's most recent two films.

The film "Partition" utilized Tyler's knowledge of Indian and Middle Eastern music. The film is an epic about the splitting off of Pakistan from India in 1947 and the resulting violence and turmoil. Tyler also conducted the orchestral portion of the score in Los Angeles with the Hollywood Studio Symphony.

[edit] Score use in other media

Tyler's cues for Children of Dune were used in the theatrical trailers for Master and Commander, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Cinderella Man. The track "Summon the Worms" from the same miniseries (Children of Dune) was used as a leader for the Belgian/Dutch show Peking Express.

A cue from The Final Cut was used for the theatrical trailer for The Da Vinci Code directed by Ron Howard, and a track from Tyler's score for Annapolis was used for the theatrical trailer for World Trade Center directed by Oliver Stone.

Tyler's music has also been used for the 2004 and 2006 Olympic Games, the 2006 NBA Finals, the 2006 Super Bowl, and the 2006 U.S. Open Championship.

[edit] Awards

  • In 2002 Tyler received an Emmy nomination for his score for The Last Call.
  • Brian Tyler has twice won the International Film Music Critics Association Award for Constantine and The Final Cut.
  • Tyler's scores for Darkness Falls and Children of Dune both won the BSOSpirit Award for Best Score of the Year in their respective categories in 2004.
  • Tyler won the Cinemusic Award in 2002 for Best New Composer of the Year along with Frailty winning Best Thriller Score of the Year.
  • Tyler was nominated for Discovery of the Year at the 2002 World Soundtrack Awards.

[edit] Filmography

Year Score
2007 Alien vs. Predator: Survival of the Fittest*
Bug*
Time to Kill*
Rogue*
Finishing the Game*
2006 The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift*
Partition*
2005 Annapolis*
The Greatest Game Ever Played*
Constantine*
2004 Paparazzi*
The Final Cut*
2003 Timeline*
Godsend*
Thoughtcrimes
The Big Empty
Star Trek: Enterprise
Children of Dune*
The Hunted*
Darkness Falls*
2002 Bubba Ho-Tep*
A Piece of My Heart
Vampires: Los Muertos*
Last Call*
2001 Frailty*
Plan B*
Jane Doe*
The Education of Max Bickford
2000 Panic*
Terror Tract*
Shadow Hours*
Four Dogs Playing Poker*
Purple Haze
1999 The 4th floor*
Simon Sez
The Settlement*
Level Nine
1998 Six-String Samurai*
The Big Spin
Final Justice
Sirens
Living In Captivity />Eggs
1997 Bartender
Jenny
Discovery Channel: Animal Planet
  • *scores for which soundtrack albums have been released

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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