John Frizzell

JOHN FRIZZELL created the score for Scott Stewart's directorial debut Legion for Screen Gems. He also scored the supernatural thriller Shelter and the drama Henry Poole is Here.

Frizzell began his musical career singing in the chorus of the Paris Opera Company and the Metropolitan Opera Company at age 12. He went on to study at USC School of Music and The Manhattan School of Music, before he met and studied under, jazz-guitar legend Joe Pass. After college, he worked for acclaimed producer/vibraphonist Michael Mainieri, where Frizzell mastered the Synclavier in the earlier years of digital audio.

Frizzell's pioneering ideas in synthesis led to working with Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto as an orchestrator (or perhaps 'synthestrator') on Oliver Stone's landmark miniseries "Wild Palms". Upon relocating to Los Angeles, Frizzell met and subsequently collaborated with composer James Newton Howard on "The Rich Man's Wife" and "Dante's Peak" before scoring his first feature film on his own "Beavis and Butt-head do America".

In the years since, Frizzell's work includes scores for films as varied as Alien: Resurrection to Office Space. His music from Gods and Generals brought together Paddy Maloney from The Chieftains and violinist Mark O'Conner. He featured Sean and Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek in his score to The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio. On Cradle 2 the Grave he collaborated with rap star DMX's producing team. For Primeval he traveled to South Africa and recorded many traditional African players, later weaving them around his orchestral score. Many of his scores today incorporate complex interactions between unusual instruments, the traditional orchestra and innovate uses of digital audio. When asked if a score is acoustic or electronic, Frizzell usual response is "yes." His goal is to constantly blur the lines.

An advocate for film music issues, Frizzell has served on the Executive Board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and has instructed graduate students at USC Thornton School of Music, and was the Honorary President of the 2007 International Film Music Conference in Ubeda, Spain.

© Screen Gems (Sony)