Cliff Eidelman

Real world article
(written from a production point of view)

Cliff Eidelman (born 5 December 1964; age 60) is a composer and conductor of Hollywood film scores. He first acquired public awareness when, at the age of 27, he wrote and conducted the critically acclaimed music for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, released in 1991.

Eidelman hails from Los Angeles, California, and began his musical training when he was 8-years-old. He began by studying violin, but eventually turned to guitar. He ultimately attended the University of Southern California, where he studied composition and orchestration. His film career began when at the age of 22 when director and producer Monica Teuber, impressed by the music Eidelman had written for a ballet and an overture commissioned by Santa Monica College, asked him to compose her film, Magdalene. The cast of this 1989 drama included David Warner, who later co-starred in Star Trek VI.

After Magdalene, Eidelman composed scores for such films as Triumph of the Spirit (1989), Crazy People (1990, featuring David Paymer and Bill Smitrovich), and Delirious (1991, featuring Zach Grenier and Charles Rocket). Following his success with Star Trek VI, Eidelman wrote the scores for such films as Leap of Faith (1992), Untamed Heart (1993, starring Christian Slater), My Girl 2 (1994, starring Jamie Lee Curtis, featuring Richard Beymer, Gerrit Graham, Wendy Schaal, George D. Wallace and Keone Young), Free Willy 3: The Rescue (1997, featuring Roger Cross and Patrick Kilpatrick), One True Thing (1998, featuring Gerrit Graham), and Harrison's Flowers (2000).

Eidelman has also composed a number of television projects for HBO. The first was the 1989 movie Dead Man Out, which earned Eidelman a nomination from the 1999 CableACE Awards. This was followed by Judgment(1990, starring Keith Carradine, Bob Gunton and Robert Joy), and the 1991 Tales from the Crypt episode "The Reluctant Vampire", starring Michael Berryman and Malcolm McDowell. He later composed the scores for the TV movies If These Walls Could Talk (1996, featuring Robin Gammell, Jack Kehler, Aaron Lustig, and Harris Yulin) and Witness Protection (1999, featuring Shannon Cochran, Jim Metzler, Leon Russom, William Sadler and Daniel Zacapa).

His later compositions have included The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003, starring Hallie Todd) and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005). He also scored He's Just Not That Into You (2008). In addition, he continues to compose and conduct music for concert hall orchestrations.

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