Bruce Broughton Biography

Share |

One of the most versatile composers working in films today, Bruce Broughton writes in every medium, from theatrical motion pictures, television and computer games to the concert stage, in styles ranging from large symphonic settings to contemporary electronic scores.

His first major film score, a broad orchestral canvas for Lawrence Kasdan's western “Silverado,” brought him an Oscar nomination. His very next assignment, a classically styled score for Barry Levinson's “Young Sherlock Holmes,” resulted in a Grammy nomination for the soundtrack album.

Composing in a broad range of styles, Broughton has written the scores for such major motion pictures as “Lost in Space,” “Tombstone,” “Miracle on 34th Street,” “Carries Away,” “Baby's Day Out,” “The Presidio,” “Narrow Margin,” “Harry and the Hendersons,” “The Boy Who Could Fly,” the Disney animated feature “The Rescuers Down Under” and the two popular “Homeward Bound” adventures. In a lighter vein he wrote the effervescent music for “Krippendorf's Tribe,” as well as the comedy hit “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid!” He conducted and supervised the recording of Gershwin's “Rhapsody in Blue” for Fantasia 2000.

With 22 nominations, he has received the Emmy Award nine times, most recently for his score for “Eloise at Christmas Time.” His television credits include the main title themes for “Jag,” “Tiny Toon Adventures” and “Dinosaurs,” and scores for “Amazing Stories,” “Quincy,” and “How the West Was Won,” movies for television such as “Lucy,” “Bobby's Girl” and “O Pioneers!,” as well as the miniseries “Roughing It,” “The Blue and the Grey” and the Emmy Award-winning “True Women.” His score for “Heart of Darkness” was the first orchestral score composed for a video game.

As a concert composer, he recently recorded his “Fanfare, Marches, Hymns and Finale” at Skywalker Studios with The Bay Brass, who commissioned the work. Other concert works include “The Magic Horn“ (commissioned jointly by the Chicago, Seattle and National Symphonies for the Magic Circle Mime Company); “English Music for Horn and Strings; Three Incongruities,” a triptych for violin and orchestra; “Tyvek Wood,” commissioned by the Debussy Trio, premiered in Prague in the summer of 1999; “Modular Music,” composed for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; a piccolo concerto; a tuba concerto; several chamber works such as the “Toccata for Two Harps and Percussion,” “Fingerprints of Childhood” for flute, violin and viola, “A Primer for Malachi” for flute, clarinet, cello and piano, as well as several solo works for winds, most notably a horn sonata composed for Dale Clevenger, principal horn in the Chicago Symphony, and “Excursions,” commissioned and premiered by the United States Air Force Band in Washington, D.C. As a conductor, his recordings of Miklos Rozsa's “Ivanhoe” and “Julius Caesar” for Intrada records, performed by the Sinfonia of London shortly before the composer's death, have received outstanding reviews, as well as his recording of Bernard Herrmann's unique score for “Jason and the Argonauts.”

Broughton is a board member of ASCAP, a governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a former governor of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and past president of the Society of Composers and Lyricists. He has taught film composition in the Advanced Film Music Studies program at USC and is a lecturer at UCLA.