Joel McNeely - composer and conductor

Joel McNeely worked as a composer on television for a number of years including a long stint on the series "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles". It was for one of these episodes that he won an Emmy. The episode was called "Young Indiana Jones and the Scandal of 1920" and featured the composer George Gershwin, allowing McNeely to demonstrate his flair for Jazz with his adaptations of Gershwin's music.

McNeely has since scored a number of feature films, such as Terminal Velocity and The Avengers (if you don't mind seeing a movie with such poor reviews). He is also building a reputation for conducting and promoting classic film scores of other composers in particular he has made a number of recordings of the work of Bernard Herrmann. In these recording projects he has worked with The Seattle Symphony Orchestra and The Royal Scottish National Orchestra (or RSNO), two orchestras who have also been associated with film music recordings for a number of years. McNeely also conducted a concert of music by Herrmann at London's Barbican Centre this March 2006, including music from Psycho, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Citizen Kane and Taxi Driver.

Films by Joel McNeely:

• Iron Will
• Squanto: A Warrior's Tale
• Radioland Murders
• Terminal Velocity
• Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain
• Flipper - the 1996 film version
• Supercop
• Vegas Vacation
• Wild America
• Air Force One - "additional music"
• The Avengers - the not particularly well-regarded film based on the TV series, but the music is good and features the original theme by Laurie Johnson
• Soldier
• Virus
• Return to Neverland
• Holes
• Uptown Girls
• Pooh's Heffalump Movie

TV themes by Joel McNeely:

• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles - some episodes of this including "Young Indiana and the Scandal of 1920" which involved the composer George Gershwin.
• The Parent Trap - the US mini-series based on the film
• Dark Angel - the James Cameron series
• The Court

Recommendations:

See recordings conducted by McNeely of Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo, Farenheit 451, Psycho, Citizen Kane, and the unused Torn Curtain, as well as John Barry's Out of Africa. With the RSNO, he has produced the Batman Trilogy CD (with music by Danny Elfman and Elliot Goldenthal) and also "Shadows of the Empire". This started life as a Stars Wars book, which then became a video game. The music from the video game was then expanded into this CD which also features John Williams' familiar Star Wars theme from the original movie.