Biography
Award-winning composer Michael Barry is equally at home with music for games, T.V., films, and the concert hall. As a trained classical pianist, Michael's music remains closely associated with the traditions of the great symphonic masters, and he is particularly capable of producing a bona fide Golden Age sound when needed. Leading Hollywood conductor Anthony Parnther described his music as: “… it was almost as if [Michael] threw a dart, and it landed perfectly between Hermann, Steiner, and Scriabin.”
Michael’s career highlights include writing music for a Steve Jobs Keynote event, proofing John Williams’ hand-written sketches on Star Wars: The Force Awakens, lead/sole orchestrating on Netflix’s Emmy-winning “Arcane,” writing backing charts for Imagine Dragons, and even acting in Nickelodeon’s The Naked Brothers Band.
Michael’s unique musical ear has allowed him to hyper-accurately transcribe (write down), for MGM, sheet music scores to Tom Bradley’s original Tom and Jerry series, whose original scores were lost forever to time in an 80’s landfill.
As an orchestrator, Michael has had a close working relationship with master composer Alan Menken and has orchestrated music for several films, including Beauty and the Beast and the forthcoming Spellbound.
Michael has worked on a wide variety of video games, including substantial work for Riot Games’ League of Legends. His work on “A New Dawn” earned him a Golden Reel Award.
In addition to his musical efforts, Michael was a co-founder of the industry-leading sampling company Cinesamples and an original founding partner of Hollywood Scoring. His latest entrepreneurial effort includes being CEO of Stratisound, a leading online tutorial company for composers.
Michael spends his spare time with his wife and dog, playing chess, cheering for his hopeless New York Rangers, studying Shostakovich, and photographing birds in his home in Lake Arrowhead.
