Filmography/Reviews | Biography

Randy Edelman in 1977 and 2003

"For me, the kick of this whole thing is writing the score, going in the room every morning, and by 8 o'clock at night, you've written something that didn't exist at 8 o'clock in the morning. And that's the excitement."
-- Randy Edelman in 1996

It is hard to overestimate the artistic reach of Randy Edelman. His music has appeared in so many unconventional places for a typical film composer that even veteran film score collectors may not know when they are hearing it. With his distinctly positive style of harmony heard in such vast sporting events as the Olympics and the Super Bowl, the exposure of Edelman's music --down to simple commercial break jingles-- is more diverse than that of practically any other current, major Hollywood composer. In addition to the original music that Edelman writes for events and shows, his themes from Gettysburg, The Last of the Mohicans, and Dragonheart are continuously used in similar situations, including countless movie trailers, saturating mainstream audiences with little snippets of his work here and there. So popular is Edelman's melodic, upbeat style that some television networks even instruct other composers to imitate Edelman's music.

Both to his credit and his detriment, his musical style is so distinct that a collector of his works will immediately notice a strong similarity between his works. He combines traditional, symphonic elements with synthetic keyboards recorded separately in his own studio, and, in the process, creates a trademark melding of pleasant sounds that carries over between most of his assignments. His collaborations with Hollywood regulars Ivan Reitman and Rob Cohen has led to a career of comedy and action scores that ranges from Kindergarten Cop to XXX. Mainstream listeners recognize his smooth, electronic music from The Last of the Mohicans, a project in which he replaced Trevor Jones in a messy and hostile studio environment, and a project which led to an album that went Platinum in sales. Film music collectors marvel at his easily memorable themes for Gettysburg and Dragonheart, although his career, much like John Debney's, extends into one of accomplishment through the quantity of work produced for several films per year.