Michael Whalen (composer)

Michael Whalen (born December 2, 1965 in New York City, New York, USA) is a composer of over 650 television and film scores and thousands of advertising jingles. He has won two Emmy Awards and his works feature in places from TV shows to audiobooks. Projects include the human trafficking film in 2011 Cargo and short films for Disney. As a recording artist and producer, his new solo piano recording "All The Things I Could Not Say" was released in 2013, and he performs in NYC frequently, where he is an adjunct professor at The City College of New York, and The Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Whalen is represented and published by Warner/Chappell Music.^[1][2]

The early years and becoming a composer

Michael was born on the North Shore of Long Island, NY at North Shore Hospital but moved to Washington, DC when he was just 2 years old. He is the son of best-selling author, columnist, economist, Presidential adviser and lobbyist Richard J. Whalen. Michael's older brother is a well-known economic analyst and author R. Christopher Whalen. His mother is American 20th-century art dealer and author Joan M. Whalen.

Michael's childhood was filled with music. He started "playing" the piano at the age of 3. His formal lessons on drums started when he was 5 years old. Influenced by rock, progressive music, early "ambient" music and fusion, he experimented with many different styles of music into his teens. In the summer of 1980, Michael found himself playing percussion with the Maryland all-state orchestra, second keyboards in a well known Washington "Go-Go" band and drums in a garage-style punk band. In the fall of 1980, he went to boarding school for high school at the prestigious St. Andrew's School in Middletown, Delaware. He graduated in May 1984. During high school, Michael wrote his first music, switched his primary instrument from percussion to keyboards and he made his first studio recordings and his first self produced recordings on a cassette 4-track machine. In 1982, he produced and released his first "single" with singer/songwriter and guitarist Jim Steed. The two song disc featured "Don't Let Go" and "Get A little Closer" and it was pressed on a 45 rpm vinyl disc. ^{[citation needed]}

In May 1987, Michael completed a somewhat indifferent college career where he attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston (from 1984 - 1985) and the University of Maryland/College Park (1985 - 1987) and moved to New York City. After recording hundreds of tracks in his 8-track basement studio and throughout the Washington-metro area, Michael arrived in New York City with a suitcase.^[3] Michael's first job was working at Elias Associates (later it was called Elias Arts) as an assistant. Elias was one of the busiest music production companies in the world in the 1980s and 90s. From being a "gopher" to studio assistant during the day, Michael immersed himself in the state-of-the-art technology available in the studios at Elias at night. Their studios featured the Synclavier Digital Audio System which became a huge part of Michael's later career. It was at Elias that Michael did his first sound design and composition of national advertisements (Pepsi, Coca-Cola, BMW, Nutrasweet, IBM, Ford and many others). He also had an opportunity to work with recording artists Duran Duran, John Waite and Glamour Camp as assistant, programmer and sound designer. ^{[citation needed]}

In 1989, Michael went off on his own as a freelancer in New York City. Working for many of the top music companies of the day, he did many hundreds of commercials from 1989 to 1995. In 1990, Michael scored his first major television series entitled "Childhood" which was broadcast on PBS in the United States. This was the first of nearly 70 multi-part series he has composed music for and the first of the nearly 600-plus television shows he has worked on. In 1995, Michael opened his own music production company on West 26th street in New York in a large loft-style studio space. After years of being a "hired gun", Michael Whalen Music, LTD. established itself as a sound design and music production house. During these years, Michael scored dozens of films for National Geographic, Discovery, The History Channel, ESPN, PBS and many others. In 1997, Michael won his first Emmy award for his work on HBO's "How Do You Spell God?" In 1998, Michael wrote the theme for ABC News' "Good Morning America". ^[4] In 1998, Michael moved to the suburbs of Boston where he built a new studio in the spacious attic of his home in the western suburbs.^{[citation needed]}

Composing Into the 2000s and Beyond

In 2002 Whelan was an associate professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He completed work on the soundtrack for the film "Veronika Decides to Die" starring Sarah Michelle Gellar in 2008. While living in New York City, he was appointed as an adjunct lecturer at City College of New York in January 2009. Also in 2009, Whelan became an adjunct professor at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University in June 2009. The piano solo, "My Linda," from his album, Dancing In Black & White, provides the haunting introductory music for all 12 volumes of Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time^[5] as recorded by Simon Vance for Audible Modern Vanguard. In 2009 Whalen released his first EP featuring him as a vocalist, entitled "The Road of Ghosts".^[6]

References

• Michael Whalen at the Internet Movie Database

External links

• Michael Whalen's homepage