Tony Blondal is a film and television orchestrator and conductor, and record arranger. He started out his musical career playing live (guitar) and doing studio recording sessions (

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of ...

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

balalaika The balalaika (russian: link=no, балала́йка, ) is a Russian stringed musical instrument with a characteristic triangular wooden, hollow body, fretted neck and three strings. Two strings are usually tuned to the same note and the thir ...

charango The charango is a small Andean stringed instrument of the lute family, from the Quechua and Aymara populations in the territory of the Altiplano in post-Colonial times, after European stringed instruments were introduced by the Spanish during co ...

and various instruments). He also pursued his other interests, which were writing orchestral and band arrangements for singers, and big band writing and arranging. Through this early work he met a group of TV composers who were busy and needed someone to help orchestrate and copy their music for weekly recording sessions. That experience led to other opportunities and started him on a new path, and he soon transitioned to film

orchestration Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra (or, more loosely, for any musical ensemble, such as a concert band) or of adapting music composed for another medium for an orchestra. Also called "instrumentation", orch ...

. To this day he still works in film primarily, but also occasionally in television and video games.

Education

Studied music theory, jazz performance, arranging and film composition at Western Washington University and the famous

Dick Grove Richard Dean Grove (1927 – December 26, 1998) was an American musician, composer, arranger, and educator. He is best known as the founder of the Dick Grove School of Music. Its students include Michael Jackson, Linda Ronstadt, and Barry Manilow ...

School of Music. Also studied privately with

Jack Smalley Jack Smalley was an American composer, orchestrator, and teacher of film and television scoring. After working for years as a jazz bassist, Smalley began to get jobs writing music for television, notably Charlie's Angels and Murder, She Wrote ...

and David Angel among others.

Career

Has orchestrated more than 100 feature films, as well as several TV series and video games. He is most known for his many collaborations with

Rolfe Kent Rolfe R. Kent (born 18 April 1963) is an English film score composer. Biography Kent was born in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England. He attended St Albans School, worked at Balrossie School in Renfrewshire, Scotland, then graduated in Psychol ...

, but has also worked with

Ramin Djawadi Ramin Djawadi (, fa, رامین جوادی; born 19 July 1974) is an Iranian and German score composer. He is known for his scores for the 2008 Marvel film ''Iron Man'' and the HBO series ''Game of Thrones'', for which he was nominated for Gramm ...

Elliot Goldenthal Elliot Goldenthal (born May 2, 1954) is an American composer of contemporary classical music and film and theatrical scores. A student of Aaron Copland and John Corigliano, he is best known for his distinctive style and ability to blend various ...

Henry Jackman Henry Pryce Jackman (born 1974) is an English composer. He composed music for films such as '' Kong: Skull Island'', '' X-Men: First Class'', '' Winnie the Pooh'', '' Wreck-It Ralph'', '' Puss in Boots'', '' Monsters vs. Aliens'', '' Captain ...

Garry Schyman Garry Schyman is an American film, television, and video game music composer. He graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in music composition in 1978, and began work in the television industry, writing music for such t ...

Jeff Cardoni Jeffrey E. Cardoni (born January 10, 1972) is an American composer. He is a multi-instrumentalist who studied classical piano before playing drums and guitar in numerous bands, including a brief stint with the rock band Alien Crime Syndicate. Bi ...

, Andrew Gross,

Christopher Young Christopher Young (born April 28, 1957) is an American composer and orchestrator of film and television scores. Many of his compositions are for horror and thriller films, including '' Hellraiser'', ''Species'', ''Urban Legend'', '' The Grudge ...

, Craig Armstrong,

Andrea Morricone Andrea Morricone (born 10 October 1964) is an Italian composer and conductor, known for his film scores. He is the third child, and second son, of late composer and Academy Award winner Ennio Morricone. He composed the film scores for the Americ ...

and others. As an arranger, he has worked with recording artists such as Peabo Bryson, Sheena Easton, Jeffrey Osborne, Melissa Manchester and Natalie Cole. He did arrangements for various artists on the Colors of Christmas Tour, the Elvis Lives Tour, and has done charts for The Tonight Show, Pat Sajack Show and The Arsenio Hall Show. He was also part of the Music Director’s Emmy award winning team for the 2007 TV Special MOVIES ROCK. Arranging for Usher for his Singin' In The Rain tribute, in addition to composing additional music. He also contributes regularly to the trailer libraries of Immediate Music, Killer Tracks and Firstcom/Universal. Has been featured in Film Score Monthly (FSM Online) Magazine.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Blondal, Tony Canadian film score composers Male film score composers Western Washington University alumni Musicians from Vancouver Living people Year of birth missing (living people)