Brian Tyler

Brian Tyler is a composer who writes, arranges, and conducts musical scores for films.

Background and musical work

Brian Tyler is a graduate of Harvard University and prior to writing his first movie score, he was already composing and playing his own concert pieces in the United States and Russia. He is a multi-instrumentalist who plays piano, classical percussion, guitar, bass, bouzouki, mandolin, keyboards, and drums. Over the years he has played in many orchestras, ensembles, choirs, and in a number of rock bands and artists such as Elton John, Foo Fighters' drummer Taylor Hawkins, and Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash. Brian is also an accomplished symphonic conductor and conducts his own scores.

After hearing Tyler's music, film composer and 20th Century Fox's President of Music Robert Kraft, encouraged Tyler to pursue a career in film scoring. Composer John Williams recommended Tyler to producer William Sherak for the 1999 film "Four Dogs Playing Poker". Tyler has since scored 2 other films produced by Sherak.

Brian Tyler's grandfather Walter H. Tyler was an Academy Award-winning art director for films such as "The Ten Commandments", "Shane", and "Sabrina".

Tyler's first professional scoring and songwriting assignment for the 1997 film "Bartender" led to interest from the producers of "Six-String Samurai". Tyler wrote Six-String Samurai's score and composed and performed a song ("On My Way to Vegas") that accompanied the film's end credits.

Since then, Tyler has written more than 30 scores, including the 2001 award winning film "Frailty" and Disney's uplifting "The Greatest Game Ever Played", both directed by Bill Paxton. "Well, the first film released that I scored was Six String Samurai, but it was Frailty that helped get me some more exposure," Tyler said in an interview with SoundtrackNet in March 2005. Director William Friedkin saw "Frailty" at the theater and called Brian in to score the action film "The Hunted" the following day.

Tyler scored a succession of big-budget films following "Frailty", including "The Hunted" starring Benicio del Toro and Tommy Lee Jones, "Timeline" directed by Richard Donner, and "Constantine" based on the Hellblazer comic books.

Tyler also scored two episodes of "Star Trek: Enterprise", and composed the score for "Children of Dune" based on the books by Frank Herbert. He wrote the 3 hour score for "Children of Dune" over a span of one month, coinciding with his work on "Darkness Falls".

For "Children of Dune" Tyler played all wood and percussion instruments (including instruments he had built himself) and performed all male vocals. He also researched Herbert's Dune books and deciphered the fictional Fremen language in order to write the song "Inama Nushif" for the score.

Brian Tyler has collaborated with director Justin Lin three times for the military drama "Annapolis", "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift", and "Finishing the Game". He has scored each of Bill Paxton's, William Friedkin's, Greg Yaitanes', and Henry Bromell's most recent two films.

Brian Tyler went to high school with drift racer Toshi Hayama and movie director McG.

The film "Partition" utilized Tyler's knowledge of Indian and Middle Eastern music. The film is an epic about the splitting off of Pakistan from India in 1947 and the resulting violence and turmoil. Tyler also conducted the orchestral portion of the score in Los Angeles with the Hollywood Studio Symphony.

Brian Tyler conducted the London Symphony Orchestra for the score to the film "War".

According to SoundtrackNet, Brian Tyler is slated to score "John Rambo" for director Sylvester Stallone.

Score use in other media

Tyler's cues for "Children of Dune" were used in the theatrical trailers for "Master and Commander", "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and "Cinderella Man". The track "Summon the Worms" from the same miniseries (Children of Dune) was used as a leader for the Belgian/Dutch show "Peking Express" and in the first leaked promotional reel for "His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass".

A cue from "The Final Cut" was used for the theatrical trailer for "The Da Vinci Code" directed by Ron Howard, and a track from Tyler's score for "Annapolis" was used for the theatrical trailer for "World Trade Center" directed by Oliver Stone.

Tyler's music has also been used for the 2004 and 2006 Olympic Games, the 2006 NBA Finals, the 2006 Super Bowl, and the 2006 U.S. Open Championship.

Awards

• In 2002 Tyler received an Emmy nomination for his score for "Last Call".
• Tyler has twice won the International Film Music Critics Association Award for "Constantine" and "The Final Cut".
• Tyler's scores for "Darkness Falls" and "Children of Dune" both won the BSOSpirit Award for Best Score of the Year in their respective categories in 2004.
• Tyler won the Cinemusic Award in 2002 for Best New Composer of the Year along with "Frailty" winning Best Thriller Score of the Year.
• Tyler was nominated for Discovery of the Year at the 2002 World Soundtrack Awards.