TERAGRAM COMPoSER
CHRIS STONE
Christopher Stone is a leader in music technology and has been since the mid-1970s when he worked as Jerry Goldsmith’s synth programmer. It was there that Chris honed his talents in the most sophisticated musical sound design of the era, leading to the creation of the voice sounds for Close Encounters of the Third Kind’s legendary mothership, the Cylons for Battlestar Galactica, and KITT Car for Knight Rider. Following the Goldsmith work, Chris conceived, realized, and has had issued an impressive five music technology and audio engineering patents.
Chris began his musical education in Los Angeles at the age of five. He quickly began writing his own compositions, which led to study with famed Russian pianist Sergei Vladimirovich Tarnowsky, as well as a conductor apprenticeship with Ivan Boutnikoff (Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo). In Paris by age 15, Chris was studying composition with influential composer Nadia Boulanger, and he was off to a professional life of music and film.
Chris holds a native ability to enhance the moving picture. He has composed music for over 20 feature films and thousands of television episodes — some of which he also conducted with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Zagreb National Orchestra, and with members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Chamber Orchestra — for Disney, Universal, CBS, NBC, ABC, A&E, HBO, and countless others.
Fluent in five languages, Chris is not only an inspired composer, he is a raconteur. He is also a walking contradiction. While he never detached from his classical roots, he maintains an avid interest in the mainstream. Case in point: Chris had the honor of composing his cello concerto Siddhartha for the award-winning cellist Andrew Shulman as well as a total of 83 episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger.
Extremely prolific, Chris was awarded ASCAP’s Most Performed Background Scores Award six years in a row.
“My classical education aside, I was — and still am — very much a heavy metal enthusiast. When you think of it, heavy metal and large orchestras have something in common: Massive, in-your-face blasts of sound. They’re really not that different! Some of my favorite songwriters and composers, in no particular order, are: Led Zeppelin, Mötley Crüe, Thomas Newman, Carter Burwell, Weird Al Yankovic, Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, Missy Elliott, Heart, The Bobs, and Gustave Holst. There’s no way I can list them all, or even my top fifty."
OUR COMPOSERS
