Michael Giacchino

Born in Riverside Township, New Jersey, Michael Giacchino was obsessed with the cinema as a child, recording movies on an audio cassette tape and listening back to them late at night. He also spent his childhood making animated films with their own accompanying soundtracks, before combining his two loves by studying film production at New York's School of Visual Arts and music at the Julliard School.

Gradually working his way through the ranks at Universal and then Disney, he started making music for video games and got his big break when Steven Spielberg allowed him to use a live orchestra on the games 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park' (1997) and the 'Medal of Honor' series. It eventually led to him working with director J.J. Abrams on the soundtrack to the television series 'Alias' in 2001 and from there he produced the music to the hit show 'Lost'. He collaborated once more with Abrams on his TV series 'Fringe' in 2008, for which he composed the music to the pilot episode before handing the reins to Chad Seiter. In 2005 Giacchino worked with Randy Newman in creating the score to the animated film 'The Incredibles'. His work for Disney-Pixar also includes soundtracks to 'Ratatouille' (2007), 'Up' (2009), 'Cars 2' (2011), 'Inside Out' (2015), 'Zootropolis' (2016) and 'Incredibles 2' (2018), whilst his relationship with Abrams saw them collaborate on 'Mission: Impossible III' (2006), 'Super 8' (2011) and 'Star Trek' (2009).

Renowned for his traditional use of live orchestras, his scores are acclaimed for rekindling the feel of classic cinema and heightening the emotional highs in poignant scenes, and he went on to win an Emmy, three Grammys, an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. In recent times he has worked on major movies such as 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' (2017), its sequel 'Spider-Man: Far from Home' (2019), the rebooted 'Planet of the Apes' trilogy, 'Jurassic World' (2016) and 'Rogue One' (2016), and in 2009 he conducted the orchestra at the Academy Awards ceremony.