Born in 1956 in Burbank, California, John Debney started playing guitar at age of six and began his
classical training. His father worked as a musician and producer at Disney Studios for over 40 years, introducing
his teenage son to the industry of animated pictures. He would bring Disney films and their written musical
scores home for his son to compare while watching the films, including Sleeping Beauty. During his
maturation, he went through a rock band phase during which his band was signed on to a contract. But after
working the rock band scene out of his system, Debney earned his Bachelors Degree from Cal-Arts and continued to
study music composition privately. In the following years, he worked mostly as an orchestrator for other
composers before slowly getting his own assignments (mostly in television). His performance and expertise is in
piano and guitar, though he has experimented with the cello and sax. He also sings and has done professional
singing work.
Although Debney began his career scoring primarily films for television, he made an effort in the mid-1990s to
seek more feature film assignments. His association with Disney has led to several of his large scoring
opportunities (though many of the films themselves have not enjoyed blockbuster success), including several
theme park works around the world. He has co-written and re-scored themes for EuroDisney, Epcot, and The Magic
Kingdom. Not to forget the importance of his early television music, Debney received three Emmy awards in the
1990's, including "The Cape" (1997), "SeaQuest DSV" (1993), and "The Young Riders" (1990). He also established
his name in the "Star Trek" genre with multiple episodes scored on both "The Next Generation" and "Deep Space
Nine." As the decade of the 1990's came to a close, Debney's assignments were of a strictly feature-film basis.
His robust score for
Cutthroat Island remains his achievement most admired by fans of the film score genre.
If Debney has a specialty, it's that he can and does handle any kind of assignment, from child-oriented
adventure films (
Spy Kids II: Island of Lost Dreams,
Inspector Gadget), suspense (
Swimfan,
I Know What You Did Last Summer), animation (
The Emperor's New Groove,
Jimmy Neutron: Boy
Genius), comedy (
Bruce Almighty,
Liar, Liar), action/martial arts (
The Tuxedo,
Sudden Death), sprawling epic (
The Scorpion King,
Cutthroat Island) and nearly every other
sub-category. In addition to his composing projects, Debney has embarked on a series of recordings of classic
film scores for Varèse Sarabande, conducting works like
Superman,
The Towering Inferno,
The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad,
Titanic and
Back to the Future with the Royal Scottish
National Orchestra. He enjoys retaining as much of the original scores' personalities as possible.
Among the composers who he most admires are Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alfred Newman, and Max Steiner from the
Golden Age, as well as Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams (who he claims has had the most profound effect upon
him). Most recently, he enjoys the works of Elliot Goldenthal, Danny Elfman, Thomas Newman, Robert Folk, and
Randy Newman. Specifically, his favorite scores are those from the Goldsmith 1970's era, and
E.T. and
Close Encounters of the Third Kind by Williams. His collaboration with Steven Spielberg on
Little
Giants and
SeaQuest DSV was among his most memorable, and would enjoy working with Spielberg again.
Debney was the most productive Hollywood composer in the year 2002, with seven projects in that year alone,
and the demand for his talents remains very high. His collection of eight scores in 1999 remains a personal
highlight in his output. The Oscar-nominated score for 2004's
The Passion of the Christ led to
a decade of concert performances and widespread acclaim. He resides in the Los Angeles area with his wife and children.
John Debney at the Bruce Almighty premiere in 2003
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