Alan Derian's Biography

By the time Alan Derian graduated from high school, he had been featured in the Boston Globe for composing numerous pieces for orchestra and jazz ensemble, including two symphonies. Consequently he was awarded the Music Department's first Henry Lasker Memorial Scholarship. Because of his ability he was awarded scholarships to attend the University of Massachusetts, Amherst as a composition major. While there he received the ASCAP Raymond Hubbell Music Award and was invited to join ASCAP as a writer member. After graduation he attended the graduate program at Boston University School of Music and taught Sixteenth and Eighteenth Century counterpoint. He then moved to the Los Angeles Area where he furthered his graduate studies at California Institute of the Arts with legendary jazz pianist, composer and film star Mel Powell and electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick. He subsequently joined the Film Program at the Grove School of Music were he received extensive orchestral conducting experience. Upon graduating Derian landed his first feature.

Since then Alan Derian has scored over fifty feature films as well as working in TV, Games, and Multimedia. He is experienced in scoring many different film genres including drama, horror, comedy, action and science fiction. His credits include Tropical Snow, released by Paramount Pictures, starring Madeleine Stowe; Invasion of Privacy, a USA Channel Premiere Movie, starring Robby Benson; Civil War Diary, released by New World Television, starring Starring Todd Duffey and John Touchstone; Eye of the Dolphin, Starring Carly Schroeder, Adrian Dunbar, George Harris and Katharine Ross, released by Monterey Media; Star Trek New Voyages, World Enough and Time, Starring George Takei; and Cryptid, Starring Lori Petty, released by Monterey Media.

About his music Alan Derian says, "My connection to music has always been on an intuitive, emotional level. I began writing music at the age of seven because of a need to express how I felt through music. That aspect of my writing has not changed and film scoring allows me to complement the emotional context of a film. This is what interests me most in my work. Filmmaking is story telling and my goal is to help the filmmaker tell his or her story."

Film Scoring

I love films that have nothing to do with reality. I am drawn to films that have a magical, supernatural, futuristic or science fiction element to their stories: epic adventures where the fate of the universe hangs in the balance. At the same time, comedies are great fun also.

On the opposite end of the scale, intimate dramas, with intense emotional range, interest me as well.