Michael Giacchino

Michael Giacchino

Michael Giacchino is a famous American Composer who regularly composes for the television and video game industry. Giacchino’s musical versatility is evident from his diverse repertoire, which includes titles from the “Call of Duty” video game series and films such as “Mission Impossible III” and “Cars 2”.

Michael Giacchino was born on October 10, 1967 in the Riverside Township, New Jersey. From the age of ten, Giacchino started experimenting with music and animation, and by the time he reached high school, Giacchino was an expert in stop-motion animation. His high school teacher recommended that Giacchino attend the School of Visual Arts in New York to pursue his interests. Giacchino then graduated from the School of Visual Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in film production.

Giacchino’s professional career started when he signed up for an unpaid internship at Universal Studios, where he was hired upon completion of his term. Giacchino, whilst taking night classes in orchestration from the University of California, Los Angeles, then took a job at Disney Interactive as a producer. He then contributed music for many of Disney’s Sega Genesis games, including “Gargoyles” and “Donald in Maui Mallard” from 1995, and the multi-console version of the highly famous “The Lion King” from 1994. However, Giacchino’s tasted true success in 1997 when he wrote a score for a video game that would be one of the first of its kind; his score for “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” was not only one of the first for Sony’s PlayStation console, but was also one of the first video game scores to feature a full orchestra. Thus, Giacchino embarked upon a truly remarkable career. He went on to work with Pandemic Studios on award winning projects such as the first “Medal of Honor” games, including “Underground”, “Allied Assault” and “Frontline”.  Giacchino’s success with the “Medal of Honor” series made him famous in the first person shooter genre, and he was hired to write the scores for the first Call of Duty games, including “Call of Duty” and “Call of Duty: Finest Hour”. Other scores for video games by Giacchino include scores for “The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer” and “Turning Point: Fall of Liberty”.

Giacchino’s iconic video game career made way for his television debut. In 2001, Giacchino was commissioned to write the soundtrack for the television series, “Alias”. He then went on to write the score for the incredibly famous television series from 2004, “Lost”. Giacchino went on to make his Hollywood debut in 2004; when he wrote the score for Pixar’s “The Incredibles”, which also went on to win two Grammy Award nominations for Best Score Soundtrack Album and Best Instrumental Composition. After the success of the Incredibles, Giacchino wrote scores to blockbuster films, including the 2009 reboot of “Star Trek”, the 2006 movie “Mission Impossible III” and the subsequent release titled “Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol”, and the 2010 animated film “Up”.

Michael Giacchino is a multiple time Grammy Award winner for “Up” and “Lost”, including awards for Best Soundtrack Album and Best Instrumental Composition. In 2010, Giacchino won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for “Up”. He also received a similar nomination in 2008 for his composition for “Ratatouille”. Giacchino also conducted the orchestra for 81st Academy Awards in 2009.