Joseph Conlan

Joseph Conlan
Background information
Origin Brooklyn, New York, USA
Genres Film scores
Occupation(s) Film Score Composer
Instruments Computers
Website www.josephconlan.com

Joseph Richard Conlan is a film & television composer based in Los Angeles. He is best known for his scores to the television series NCIS, Tour of Duty and Simon & Simon, and to feature films Spiders 3D and Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia.

Joe is also known for integrating electronic music textures with conventional orchestration. He has received several awards and nominations.

Film & Television Scoring

Joe's earliest notable television credits are Simon & Simon, Tour of Duty, The Equalizer and V: The Final Battle. Recent feature scores include Toolbox Murders and Mortuary (for legendary film director Tobe Hooper), Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia (dir.: Tim Matheson), Spiders 3D (dir.: Tibor Takács), and for television, the series NCIS. Most recently Joe wrote the romantic-comedy score to the feature film The Callback Queen for Film Venture London and director Graham Cantwell. Joe has been nominated for two EMMY awards, one for Mortal Sins (starring Christopher Reeve) and another for Miracle Run (starring Aidan Quinn & Zac Efron). Joe has also won Best Score at The Underground Cinema Awards (2010) for his score to the short film No Justice (directed by Dublin director Alan Walsh) and won Best Song at the Rome International Film Festival (2004) for the title song Finding Home (lyric by Holly Conlan).

Joe has dual citizenship with the U.S. and Ireland (EU). He is represented by Brice Gaeta at ICM in Los Angeles.

Early Years & Influences

Born in Brooklyn NY, a fortuitous move at the age of five brought Joe Conlan and his family to Los Angeles to set down new roots. At the age of eight, a tortuous, stilted regimen of piano lessons began, but by age eleven a new, younger teacher had opened Joe's eyes to the more theoretical dimensions of music and the magic of chords. Joe began to hone his craft as early as high school, writing music for various ensembles and choirs. But it wasn't until a friend introduced him to Earle Hagen's seminal book, 'Scoring For Film' that Joe realized how he should apply his passion.

After a few years of writing commercial jingles for Santa Barbara radio stations, Joe began to work for Hagen on the TV series 'Eight Is Enough'. This introduction to television led him to work with composers Mark Snow on 'Starsky & Hutch' and 'Hart to Hart' and Hoyt Curtin on Hanna/Barbera's 'Smurfs' and 'Popeye'. Joe's first screen credit soon followed when Barry De Vorzon brought him on to write the score for the new series 'Simon & Simon'.

Joe's musical influences reach from Lennon/McCartney and James Taylor to Claude Debussy and Aaron Copland, to Tom Scott, Radiohead, The Chemical Brothers and Irish folk music. His film scores are just as eclectic, ranging from dark psychological thrillers to romantic comedies, from conventional orchestral arrangements to electronic and more experimental instrumentation. Along with his strong sense of theme and rhythmic texture, the technique of combining conventional instrumentation with manipulated, twisted and textural sound design elements that he's created, allows Joe to produce a distinctive score for each project.

Awards & Nominations

Awards

Nominations

References

[1] [2]

  1. ↑ "InConversation with Joseph Conlan" Film Ireland InConversation Podcast
  2. ↑ "Joseph Conlan - Film Composer Masterclass - Fingal Film Festival" Fingal Film Festival (2012)

External links