David Ari Leon (born December 12, 1967) is an American

music supervisor A music supervisor is a person who combines music and visual media. According to The Guild of Music Supervisors, a music supervisor is “a qualified professional who oversees all music related aspects of film, television, advertising, video games ...

, composer, songwriter and musician. Leon's first professional music credit was in 1990 working with Danny Elfman on the feature film

Nightbreed ''Nightbreed'' is a 1990 American dark fantasy horror film written and directed by Clive Barker, based on his 1988 novella ''Cabal''. It stars Craig Sheffer, Anne Bobby, David Cronenberg, Charles Haid, Hugh Quarshie, and Doug Bradley. The film f ...

. He is best known for writing and supervising music for Marvel Entertainment on titles including Spider-Man and Incredible Hulk. He is a songwriter on the

theme Theme or themes may refer to: * Theme (arts), the unifying subject or idea of the type of visual work * Theme (Byzantine district), an administrative district in the Byzantine Empire governed by a Strategos * Theme (computing), a custom graphical ...

s to the

Marvel Marvel may refer to: Business * Marvel Entertainment, an American entertainment company ** Marvel Comics, the primary imprint of Marvel Entertainment ** Marvel Universe, a fictional shared universe ** Marvel Music, an imprint of Marvel Comics * ...

series

Avengers Avenger, Avengers, The Avenger, or The Avengers may refer to: Arts and entertainment In the Marvel Comics universe * Avengers (comics), a team of superheroes **Avengers (Marvel Cinematic Universe), a central team of protagonist superheroes of ...

and

Super Hero Squad ''Marvel Super Hero Squad'' is an action figure line marketed by Hasbro beginning in 2007. The line features scale replicas of comic book heroes from the Marvel Comics universe. Each figure is portrayed in a cartoonish super-deformed style. The ...

, and he composed the

main title The main title is the music, often later recorded on soundtrack albums, that is heard in a film while the opening credits are rolling. It does not refer to music playing from on-screen sources such as radios, as in the original opening credits s ...

music to the shows Xyber 9 and Mr. Bill Presents.

Featured music

Leon has been featured as a music artist on

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

's syndicated programs

Morning Edition ''Morning Edition'' is an American radio news program produced and distributed by NPR. It airs weekday mornings (Monday through Friday) and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 5:00 to 9:00 A ...

and

All Things Considered ''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...

in ten episodes between the years 2005 to 2018. He was also featured on the album "Rockabye Baby! Baby's Favorite Rock Songs," which was available exclusively at Starbucks March 23 – April 19, 2010. The album reached #3 on '' Billboards Kids Albums chart, #18 on the Billboard Independent Albums, and #111 on the

Billboard Top 200 The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine and is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artis ...

. It contains a version of the Rolling Stones song Ruby Tuesday that Leon performed and produced for the Rockabye Baby! series, which also features the artists Björk,

Journey Journey or journeying may refer to: * Travel, the movement of people between distant geographical locations ** Day's journey, a measurement of distance ** Road trip, a long-distance journey on the road Animals * Journey (horse), a thoroughbred ra ...

and

Kanye West Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and fashion designer. Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, West gained recognition as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records in the ea ...

Education and early career

College

In 1990, Leon received a B.A. degree from

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

music composition Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called c ...

, where he focused on piano performance, film scoring and electronic music production. While attending the university, he did internships with

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

-nominated composers,

Mark Isham Mark Ware Isham (born September 7, 1951) is an American musician and film composer. A trumpeter and keyboardist, Isham works in a variety of genres, including jazz and electronic. He is also a film composer, having worked on numerous films and ...

and Danny Elfman, the latter of which resulted in Leon's first feature film credit on the

Clive Barker Clive Barker (born 5 October 1952) is an English novelist, playwright, author, film director, and visual artist who came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories, the ''Books of Blood'', which established him as a leading h ...

movie, ''

''. Immediately following his completion of university, Leon worked on '' Days of Our Lives'', garnering him an Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Music Director."

Marvel and Fox

In 1994, Leon began working for

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

, the parent company of

at that time, as Music Director and composer on the TV series '' Valley of the Dolls''. The following year (1995) was the start of his work for

as composer and music supervisor on the show '' Spider-Man'', along with other titles for Fox Kids. Leon subsequently held a Vice President of Music title for

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

from 1997 to 2002. During that time, he received

credits on many film and television projects for Fox such as the miniseries ''

Les Misérables ''Les Misérables'' ( , ) is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its origin ...

'' starring

John Malkovich John Malkovich (born December 9, 1953) is an American actor. He is the recipient of several accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, two Screen Actors Guild Aw ...

and the primetime series '' State of Grace'', starring

Frances McDormand Frances Louise McDormand (born Cynthia Ann Smith; June 23, 1957) is an American actress and producer. Throughout her career spanning over four decades, McDormand has received numerous accolades, including four Academy Awards, two Primetime Emm ...

Recent works

More recently, Leon performed and arranged songs for a series of albums on

Vitamin Records Vitamin Records is a Los Angeles-based record label founded in 1999 in music, 1999 as a subsidiary of CMH Records. The label was formerly home to the Vitamin String Quartet, who are best known for performing string quartet tributes to popular rock ...

by artists including

Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian-American singer and songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, joining Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Richie Fur ...

The Cure The Cure are an English rock band formed in 1978 in Crawley, West Sussex. Throughout numerous lineup changes since the band's formation, guitarist, lead vocalist, and songwriter Robert Smith has remained the only constant member. The band's ...

R.E.M. R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. One of the first alternati ...

and Pink Floyd. He has also music supervised and written music for a series of interactive and

Motion Comic A motion comic (or animated comic) is a form of animation combining elements of print comic books and animation. Individual panels are expanded into a full shot while sound effects, voice acting, and animation are added to the original artwork. Tex ...

s for

, starting with The

Astonishing X-Men ''Astonishing X-Men'' is the name of four X-Men comic book series from Marvel Comics, the first two of which were limited series. The third volume, an ongoing series, began in 2004, with its first run written by Joss Whedon and art by John Cassada ...

by Joss Whedon, and including the recent '' Captain America: The Winter Soldier'', which was the first digital comic to have an interactive soundtrack. Other more recent work for

includes Leon being the

on eight movies co-produced by

Lions Gate Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, doing business as Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American entertainment company. It was formed by Frank Giustra on July 10, 1997, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is currently headquartered ...

including Thor: Tales of Asgard and Invincible Iron Man. 2019 found Leon writing a series of songs for the successful

Netflix Original Netflix is an American global Internet streaming-on-demand media provider that has distributed a number of original streaming television shows, including original series, specials, miniseries, and documentaries and films. Netflix's original pro ...

series, Super Monsters. While continuing his TV music work on shows such as the Emmy winning

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

show Sea Rescue and the Emmy nominated

show The Wildlife Docs, Leon also currently scores music for popular titles for EA and other interactive companies. Games with Leon's music include hit titles such as

Contre Jour ''Contre Jour'' is a physics-based puzzle video game for web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web s ...

, Superman, Snoopy Coaster and

Woody Woodpecker Woody Woodpecker is an animated character that appeared in theatrical short films produced by the Walter Lantz Studio and distributed by Universal Studios between 1940 and 1972. Woody, an anthropomorphic woodpecker, was created in 1940 by ...

, which garnered Leon a

Hollywood Music in Media Award The Hollywood Music In Media Awards (HMMA) is an award organization honoring original music (Song and Score) in all forms visual media including film, TV, video games, trailers, commercial advertisements, documentaries, music videos and special pr ...

nomination for his original score to the title. Leon's music was also included in the educational project

Kiwaka Kiwaka is an educational game for iOS, macOS and tvOS designed to teach children about astronomy. The app was developed by the Portuguese software company Landka in collaboration with scientific institutions such as the European Space Agency (ES ...

, a game specifically designed to explore the concept of

tangential learning Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machines; there is also evidence for some kind of learn ...

References

External links

* *
David Ari Leon
at

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

David Ari Leon
at

Last.FM Last.fm is a music website founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. Using a music recommender system called "Audioscrobbler", Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste by recording details of the tracks the user listens to, e ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leon, David Ari 1967 births Composers for piano Video game composers American television composers American male composers 21st-century American composers American keyboardists Jewish American composers Living people 21st-century American male musicians Vitamin Records artists 21st-century American Jews