Bear McCreary

Bear McCreary (born February 17, 1979) is an American musician and composer of film, television, and video games scores based in Los Angeles, California. He is best known for his work on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series and for the TV series Outlander and The Walking Dead. He has also scored for the PlayStation 4 video game God of War. McCreary won an Emmy for his main title of Da Vinci's Demons. His most recent Emmy nomination was in 2015 for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series for season one of Outlander. McCreary was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and spent most of his formative years in Bellingham, Washington. He is the son of author Laura Kalpakian and professor Jay McCreary of University of Hawaii. His brother, Brendan McCreary, is also a musician. Bear has directed and produced several music videos for Brendan's band, Young Beautiful in a Hurry. He graduated from Bellingham High School in 1997. He is a classically trained pianist and self-taught accordionist. He studied under the renowned film score composer Elmer Bernstein during which time he reconstructed and reorchestrated Bernstein's 1963 score for Kings of the Sun. Their collaboration allowed for the complete score to be available as a soundtrack album for the first time in 40 years. McCreary credits composers Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, Danny Elfman, Ennio Morricone, John Williams, Shirley Walker as being key to his growing up adoring film music. They were his heroes while he was growing up. Contemporary composers continue to inspire his growth and is a self-avowed fan of Hans Zimmer. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.