Today we’d like to introduce you to John Beal.
Hi John, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
A fourth-generation Californian, I was born in Santa Monica, California, and surrounded by music in the family home, as my Dad played us everything from the greatest symphonies to pop and jazz from all eras. My fraternal grandfather was one of the pioneers of the very first television broadcasts and the recording of Arturo Toscanini’s famous RCA concerts and part of the team that designed the multichannel sound for Fantasia.
My first introduction to musical instruments was short-lived. My parents had given me a child-sized drum set for Christmas when I was five years old. The heads only lasted one day. So, I started piano at age six and by age eight, I was a vocal soloist in a professional boys’ choir. I was blessed by introduction to fabulous teachers and opportunities. I started drums at age nine, studying with a busy studio drummer, and by age 12 was playing professionally in jazz ensembles. By age 15, I was teaching drums at a music store in Pasadena alongside several A-list studio musicians. I had to take a bus because I wasn’t old enough to drive but was teaching grownups. I had no idea this was unusual at the time. I spent my school years improvising compositions on the piano and playing and studying percussion and jazz drums with some of the greatest musicians in Los Angeles and then went to San Diego State. But it wasn’t a good fit and I returned to Hollywood, playing in clubs and recording sessions until I joined the Marine Corps and had a little adventure in combat.
I started conducting for television and celebrity acts around the world at age 23 and was blessed to meet and work with some amazing people such as Olivia Newton-John, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Mathis, Gladys Knight, Bobby Darin, Lou Rawls, Raquel Welch, B.B. King, Sally Struthers, Leslie Uggams, Frankie Avalon, and The Captain & Tennille.
But what I really wanted to pursue was work as a composer and conductor. I was first inspired as a teenager to seek a career in film music by famed silent film theatre organist Gaylord Carter. Sitting right with him while he improvised scores on huge theatre organs to restorations of the most famous silent films of all time was an astonishing experience and embedded a deep sense of theatrics in my heart forever.
Encouraged to follow this dream by our neighbor and family friend, five-time Oscar® nominated composer George Duning, who took me to scoring sessions, my other mentors included Academy-Award winning composer Dominic Frontiere, Disney’s Oscar nominee Buddy Baker, Emmy Award-winning composers Earle Hagen and Billy Goldenberg. My conducting mentors were Academy Award-nominee and multiple Emmy Award-winning Ian Fraser and twelve-time Emmy nominee Nick Perito. During this period, I went through UCLA’s film scoring and music business programs.
I was fortunate to get picked up by Hollywood’s top composer agents at the time and began composing television shows and low-budget movie scores. It was a great run, but I got tapped to be a composer of music for movie trailers by the studio marketing and trailer agencies and sidestepped into a career composing and conducting over 2,000 original scores for the marketing of such movies as Aladdin, The Matrix, The Last Samurai, Star Wars, Titanic, Black Rain, Black Hawk Down, Forrest Gump, Ghost, Hamlet, J.F.K., The Hunt for Red October, In the Line of Fire, The Mask, True Lies, We Were Soldiers, and Planet of the Apes. It was an amazing time working with the greatest creatives in Hollywood.
But it is conducting Live to Picture concerts with big orchestras performing the scores to great movies live on stage in this new life chapter that has set my heart on fire. I’ve been blessed to conduct truly great orchestras around the world from Europe to the Pacific Rim and throughout the United States for such films as The Godfather, the Harry Potter films, Home Alone, The Goonies and Rocketman. One of the most enjoyable things about the marvelous new phenomenon of live to film concerts on stage with some amazing orchestras is meeting people whose first symphonic film score listening experience ranges from those remembering film scores of the 1940’s to those who just discovered the majesty of an orchestral score in a recent blockbuster. We have all been deeply touched by a special moment in film and film music, and our love for this art form brings us together across many generations.
To this day, I have found no greater career moments than those surrounded by Hollywood’s gifted musicians in the studio as we strive to provide a seamless and moving additional voice to the greatest art form of modern times, the cinema, and then to have the opportunity to conduct these beautiful scores with the greatest orchestras in the world.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
There’s a time in every musician’s life where they wonder if they are going to play weddings and bar mitzvahs for the rest of their career – or if they can even keep a career going. But finding yourself making soup out of hot water and ketchup builds character!
There were definitely some lean times while I pursued my passion. Time spent in combat in the Marine Corps was definitely interruptive but, through that experience, I learned tenacity, loyalty and trustworthiness would be the things that got me through tough times. It was the delightful Dawn Steel who wrote the book about Hollywood, They Can Kill You.. but They Can’t Eat You. Every mentor I ever had advised the trick was to be “the last man standing.”
As is typical in Hollywood, you don’t get work until someone else has hired you, so there’s that. I have gotten all my work from referrals, and it was those early gigs that spoke for me, I guess. There was a lot of time spent pounding the pavement and hanging out at studios, which is sadly no longer possible these days.
Winston Churchill once said, ‘To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.’ I am blessed to have been well-prepared for these moments.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m primarily known internationally as a specialist in live-to-picture conducting and as a major studio marketing composer. With thousands of hours in front of orchestras in Hollywood and around the world, I am as at home on the concert stage as in the recording studio. I’m Principal Conductor of the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra and have conducted a wide and diverse variety of shows and live-to-picture scores with many of the world’s greatest musicians in venues stretching from London to Tokyo, from the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, the National Orchestra of Belgium and The City of Prague Philharmonic, to the National Symphony of Malaysia Kuala Lumpur and the Evergreen Symphony of Taiwan, as well as major symphony orchestras throughout the United States, including several decades in Los Angeles with the Hollywood Studio Symphony Orchestra.
As a Music Director, I have arranged and conducted orchestras on albums and in concerts and television with very diverse artists ranging from the world premiere of Rocketman: Live in Concert with Sir Elton John and Taron Egerton to the world premiere orchestral concert of Electronica DJ Deadmau5, the world premiere of Serengeti Live with Lola Lennox, the U.S. concert debut of Olivia Newton-John, and for singers Gladys Knight, Ella Fitzgerald, and B.B. King, and as a Music Director/music consultant for over 20 major network specials.
As a composer, I’ve been blessed to write music for 45 theatrical features, television films and documentaries, 26 major network television series or specials, and 35 national advertisers. I had the privilege of working with the legendary Marc Davis of Walt Disney’s Imagineering Team, creating music for Disneyland’s America Sings, Carousel of Progress and Country Bear Jamboree, as well as supervising and conducting music for the televised Grand Opening ceremonies of Walt Disney World. As a trailer composer, I’m thrilled to be internationally recognized for composing and conducting original scores for the marketing of over 2,000 major studio projects, including Star Wars, Titanic, Forrest Gump, Aladdin, Braveheart, The Matrix, and The Last Samurai.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
If it’s regarding the entertainment business and the life as a creative, it would be passion. This work is not for the faint of heart, and it takes not only dedication to provide the entertainment people look for, it takes passion – not only self passion to create or perform but a selfless passion to move people’s emotions.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://composerjohnbeal.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/giannibeal/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/composerjohnbeal
Image Credits:
Personal photo is courtesy Reeltime Creative Inc. Photo 4 in the group is courtesy Reeltime Creative Inc. Photos 2,3 and 6 in the group are by Daniel Knighton photos 1 and 5 in the group are by Lance Bachelder
