Stephen A. Rippy (born 1975) is an American composer from

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

who is well known for his musical compositions for the soundtracks of various

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

s, most notably the

Age of Empires ''Age of Empires'' is a series of historical real-time strategy video games, originally developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Xbox Game Studios. The first title in the series, ''Age of Empires'', focused on events in Europe, Afri ...

franchise by Ensemble Studios and Microsoft Games.

Life and career

Rippy grew up in the Spring area of Harris County, Texas, and now resides in

Plano, Texas Plano ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "flat surface" /'plano/) is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, where it is the largest city in Collin County, Texas, Collin County. A small portion of Plano is located in Denton County, Texas, Denton Count ...

, near

Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

. Making video game music was not Rippy's original career goal. He attended the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

in the early 1990s to study visual art, and only took a few music courses. Rippy worked for Ensemble Studios as the head of the Audio department with friend and collaborator Kevin McMullan. He is best known for his sound design and scores on the ''

'' series, its spin-off '' Age of Mythology'', and the

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...

strategy game '' Halo Wars''. Ensemble was closed down shortly after the release of ''Halo Wars''. Rippy joined Zynga Dallas (then Bonfire Studios), a development studio formed from ex-Ensemble employees and led by Rippy's brother David (who is also a composer of video game soundtracks, having previously worked with Stephen for the Age of Empires series).

References

External links

Interview with Rippy
Music4Games
Article on Age of Empires musicarchive
, Film Score Monthly
Scoring ''Age of Mythology''

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

Official Site
American male composers 21st-century American composers American video game composers 1975 births Living people People from Spring, Texas People from Plano, Texas Ensemble Studios people 21st-century American male musicians {{US-composer-20thC-stub