Artist
Jeff Rona
Jeff Rona is a contemporary film composer, recording artist, and performer. The son of European immigrants, he studied music, art & photography, but left school to pursue music as his life's work. Early on he composed for dance, theater, galleries and contemporary concert venues around the world using both traditional musicians and cutting-edge digital technologies. Eventually he became an in-demand studio musician, arranger, ethnic woodwind player, sound designer, synthesist and music programmer in Los Angeles & New York.
Prior to becoming an established a composer, he was closely involved in a number of creative & technical aspects of electronic music, including the development of musical software and new instrument design, and was a leading figure in making MIDI a groundbreaking world-wide phenomenon.
He worked on numerous films & records before landing his first solo composing project, scoring the acclaimed television series Homicide:Life On The Street for director Barry Levinson. Since then he has scored a number of other films and television projects with directors such as Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, Wong Kar-wai, Robert Altman, Steven Soderbergh, Mark Pellington, Stephen Hopkins, Jonathan Demme, Frank Darabont and many others. His projects have received numerous awards including Oscar, Peabody & Emmy awards, and countless film festival awards around the world. He is a two time recipient of the ASCAP film and television music award. He was commissioned to compose a concert for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which toured throughout China.
Among his album projects he recorded and performed as a member of Jon Hassell's highly regarded group, during which he co-composed and produced the acclaimed City-Works Of Fiction record for Opal Records (now on Rykodisc). The group toured and performed with legendary producer/composer Brian Eno. He's performed with the Eastern fusion ensemble Axiom Of Choice, and appears on their Narada records. In addition to his album work with Hassell, his music is also on the critically praised world-beat Transplanet series on Triloka Records, the electronica compilation Leaves From The Tree, and Elysium For the Brave, the newest record with Persian singer Azam Ali.
Jeff has been chronicling his experiences in the film music world over the past several years in his very popular column in Keyboard Magazine, The Reel World. The column, which is also the basis of his major book on film music, is read worldwide. He is an artist-in-residence at the Aspen Music Festival, and often speaks on film music.
