Joel McNeely

Joel McNeely is a Primetime Emmy Award-winning composer and conductor with more than 100 motion picture and television credits.  McNeely maintains a busy schedule recording, producing, conducting and composing for film, television and concerts.

As a composer for film and television, McNeely has worked with such respected filmmakers as James Cameron, John Lasseter, Seth MacFarlane and George Lucas, among others.  In addition to composing, conducting and orchestrating the score for A Million Ways to Die in the West, McNeely and MacFarlane co-wrote an original song for the film.

McNeely produced and arranged MacFarlane's new Christmas album. He also produced and arranged MacFarlane's first album of big band and orchestral standards, "Music Is Better Than Words," for Universal Republic Records.  The album received two Grammy Award nominations.  McNeely has written the music for all of Walt Disney Pictures' popular Tinker Bell movies, having just completed the fifth film in the series, The Pirate Fairy.  He also wrote the music for the entire franchise, which includes theme parks, ice shows and video games.  McNeely's film and video credits include Secret of the Wings, The Tinker Bell Movie, Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure, Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue, Mulan II, Return to Never Land, Ghosts of the Abyss, I Know Who Killed Me, Uptown Girls, Virus, The Avengers, Air Force One, Wild America and Terminal Velocity.

McNeely's television credits include MacFarlane's American Dad!, James Cameron's Dark Angel, Sally Hemings: An American Scandal, Buffalo Soldiers and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

McNeely has also produced and arranged songs for artists such as Norah Jones, Sara Bareilles, Burt Bacharach, Chris Mann, Natasha Bedingfield, The All-American Rejects, Goo Goo Dolls, Mika, Carly Simon, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Linda Ronstadt, Rosemary Clooney and Jonatha Brooke.

McNeely received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore) for The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.  He was also nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music Direction for The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, a Grammy Award for Outstanding Classical Crossover Album for The Day the Earth Stood Still and an Annie Award for Outstanding Music in an Animated Feature Production for Return to Never Land.  In addition, he received an ASCAP Film and Television Music Award for Air Force One and a Gramophone Award for his recording of the motion picture score of Vertigo.  He was given the Frost Distinguished Alumni Award from the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami and the Path of Inspiration Award from the Interlochen Center for the Arts.

As a conductor, McNeely led the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in an award-winning series of rerecordings of classic film scores.  He conducted the BBC Concert Orchestra in a performance of Bernard Herrmann's music for Hitchcock films in London's Barbican Hall, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in the world premiere of Uri Caine's "Concerto for Two Pianos," with Jeffrey Kahane and the composer as soloists.  He has also worked with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, the Munich Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the West Australian Symphony Orchestra.

Born into a musical family in Madison, Wisconsin, McNeely's interest in music began at an early age.  A meeting with legendary composer Elmer Bernstein at age 12 inspired him to embark on a career writing music for film.  At age 14, he was accepted into the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan and began concentrated music studies in composition and flute performance.  After graduating from Interlochen, McNeely headed to the University of Miami, where he studied jazz composition and performance.  While still an undergraduate, he toured the world, playing with such performers as Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee, Al Green, Melissa Manchester, Chuck Mangione, Bobby Caldwell, Jaco Pastorius and David Liebman.

McNeely earned a master's degree in composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and a bachelor's degree in music at The University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida.

Universal Pictures