Hailed by the New York Times as “precise and evocative,†the music of Joseph Trapanese is heard in feature films, network and cable television as well as in productions at NYU, UCLA, off-Broadway, on NPR, and in theaters around the world. It has been performed by four GRAMMY-winning artists and awarded by ASCAP, the American Music Center, Yale University, UCLA, the Henry Mancini Institute and Downbeat Magazine.
Winner of the first annual Jerry Goldsmith Award (2007), Joseph’s recent film work includes numerous independent features and shorts, as well as additional music for Lionsgate’s NECESSARY EVIL and THE LAST WORD, orchestrations for Showtime’s sensational hit series DEXTER (2008 Emmy and Golden Globe Nominee), Fox’s WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS, Lifetimes features THE MEMORY KEEPER’S DAUGHTER (2008 Emmy Nominee) and MANEATER, Nickelodeon’s first live action feature GYM TEACHER, and Don Cheadle’s thriller TRAITOR. As an arranger and music programmer he has worked on the Fox sitcom THE LOOP, NBC’s AMERICA’S GOT TALENT, ABC’s AMERICAN INVENTOR, and Disney’s original movie JUMP IN. He has also served as a synthesizer programmer and sample designer on the features TRAITOR and RENDITION.
As an arranger and orchestrator, he has written for ALICE IN CHAINS and EISLEY, while his dance and theater collaborations have been performed across the country and in Israel and India. Joseph serves as a lecturer of electronic music composition at UCLA, where he completed his M.A. as the first graduate of the Composition for Visual Media program; his B.M. in Music Composition is from the Manhattan School of Music. Teachers include Giampaolo Bracali, Paul Chihara, Roger Bourland, and Martin Bresnick.
