"With Star Trek I just felt so good about doing that, and being part of such a legacy, a part of history that would live on... I would have loved to do more Star Trek movies."
- Cliff Eidelman in 1998

One of the few Los Angeles-born composers working in Hollywood, Cliff Eidelman (born 1964) began his formal musical training at the age of eight, studying the violin. After experimenting with the jazz guitar, he trained at Santa Monica City College, where he received his two commissions (the ballet Once Upon a Ruler and Celebration Symphony Overture in Three Movements). After enrolling in the music program at USC, Eidelman received his first lucky break into film scoring, with an offer to write for the feature film Magdalene. Recorded with a stunningly large orchestra and choir in Europe, the score showcased Eidelman's ability to write an epic and melodic score. After providing an equally impressive score for the WWII drama Triumph of the Spirit in 1989, Eidelman expanded beyond the television venue in which had been concentrating and wrote his two fan favorite scores, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and Christopher Columbus: The Discovery.

Beginning in 1992, Eidelman began writing introspective and intimate scores for films of stronger character orientation, and by 1998, it would be these scores by which the composer's talents would be best known in the industry. For Untamed Heart, Leap of Faith, My Girl 2, A Simple Twist of Fate, Now and Then, and One True Thing, Eidelman would compose and conduct minimalistic, but thematically rich scores, often with the piano as the centerpiece of the work. Between 1989 and 1999, Eidelman also scored a multitude of telvision films, including the 1989 HBO film Dead Man Out (a score which was nominated for a Cable Ace award), the dramatic 1996 telefilm If These Walls Could Talk and the 1999 HBO production of Witness Protection.

In the 1990's, Eidelman also emerged as an equally talented conductor. With performing groups in Seattle and Scotland, he has conducted numerous performances of film music, as well as his own compositions, and most of which released on the Varèse Sarabande record label. During his entire career, Eidelman has continued to write original pieces for the concert hall, including "Suite for Orchestra" in 1996, "Five Pieces from Stage and Screen" in 1987, "The Creation Symphony" in 1995, and "The Tempest" in 1996. Eidelman remained active in these endeavors even as his film scoring career slowed in the 2000's, and the composer continued to reside in Santa Monica, California.