My attempt at writing a 1960’s TV theme song with a trumpet, trombone, alto, and tenor sax. Let the ridiculousness commence.

Get Smarter

film music composer/orchestrator from sandy hook, connecticut, now living in Denver

Jon O’Hara (BMI) is a composer, songwriter, producer of music, and pianist currently living and working in Los Angeles, California. He recently received his Masters of Music in Scoring for Film, Television, and Video Games from Berklee College of Music in Valencia, Spain, during which time he had the opportunity to record his score for a short film Celles et Ceux des Cimes et Cieux at Abbey Road Studios in London, England. Prior to Berklee, O’Hara graduated in 2014 from Vanderbilt's Blair School of Music with a Bachelor’s of Music in Composition & Theory and was the 2014 recipient of the presitgeous Sue Brewer Award, given to one student for excellence in the Composition/Theory or Guitar Performance Major.

An aspiring film and television composer, Jon has composed music for a variety of short films and documentaries, including Gwenn Germain’s Celles et Ceux des Cimes et Cieux, Tyler Winther’s Kenzie, Taylor Jody's Brighter on the Other Side, John Paul Gutman's Doing Well In Ethiopia, as well as Madeline O'Hara's Paper Planes. He is currently beginning work on Tyler Winther’s Otherside in addition to the still-untitled new short film from Taylor Jody. O’Hara’s original music has been featured in TV shows such as NCIS (CBS), The Strain (FX), GRIMM (NBCUniversal), The Finder (FOX), and Crash (Starz). In addition, he also was hired with his longtime friend and musical collaborator Wil Virkler to write source music specific for the indie crime comedy A Fork In The Road.

In the past, Jon has worked for Mike Post (Law and Order, NYPD Blue, The Rockford Files), Bear McCreary (The Walking Dead, Human Target, Battlestar Galactica), Kris Wilkinson, Jim Gray, and Kip Winger and views these experiences as essential to his development as a composer. "I really have been fortunate to learn the business from an insider's perspective with these incredible work and internship opportunities. I hope to eventually be able to pay it forward and help other young composers on a path to realizing their dreams.”

As if all of these scoring projects were not enough to keep Jon busy, he devotes much of his time to songwriting and production. He is currently hard at work finishing the mixing process of multiple new projects. The Two Suns (a collaboration with vocalist/songwriter Turi Clausell) delves into the realm of funk, neo-soul, and R&B and is set to release their debut EP, “To Be Honest” in September 2015. The Two Suns recently agreed to a co-publishing deal with Steel Beam Music.

Jon uses much of his time to compose concert music as well. “An Oasis in Winter” for string orchestra (2013) was debuted in Turner Hall at the Blair School of Music in the spring of 2014, programmed with a few of his other works, including the premiere of his “Pastorale (for M.S.)” for solo piano. He is currently at work composing his first piano concerto. Other notable pieces of Jon's are his “Retrospective" (2011) for Cello and Piano, which he also orchestrated (2012) and "Episodes" for solo cello (2012), which was premiered by the fantastic cellist and longtime collaborator Alex Krew in October of 2012. Krew also guested as the featured cellist on O’Hara’s newest songwriter project, Ghosts of a Golden Age, a collaboration with guitarist/songwriter Mason Hickman that dives into Jon's inherent indie-folk songwriter sensibilities combined with entrancing psychedelic production techniques.
In addition to his composition and songwriting, Jon is a very experienced classical and jazz pianist. For almost two decades, Jon has performed, toured, and competed everywhere from the United States to Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris.

Jon O’Hara is affiliated with BMI as a composer and songwriter (Jonathan O’Hara) as well as a publisher (Sound Happens Publishing).

Get Smarter

AJ Alexander | Composer