Background
Joel McNeely was born in Madison, Wisconsin.
Joel McNeely was born in Madison, Wisconsin.
He attended the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, studied jazz at the University of Miami, and earned a master"s degree as a composition major at the Eastman School of Music. Lucasfilm chose McNeely to compose the soundtrack to the 1996 Star Wars novel Shadows of the Empire.
He is a composer of film and television music This was an experimental project where he conveyed general moods and themes instead of writing music to flow for specific scenes. He is also notable for conducting a series of re-recordings of Bernard Herrmann, Franz Waxman, John Barry and others" scores under the label of Varèse Sarabande, notably Vertigo, Psycho and Citizen Kane, and selected scores from the Twilight Zone television series, among others
He also composed the score for The Avengers and the theme and music for FOX"s Dark Angel.
Additionally, he scored the movies Terminal Velocity, Iron Will (which was used in the teaser trailers of Toy Story), Flipper, Gold Diggers, Samantha, Virus, and I Know Who Killed Maine (2007). He also scored a multitude of Disney animated films (Mulan II, Peter Pan: Return to Neverland (2002), Tinker Bell and many others).
Currently McNeely scores occasional episodes of the FOX animated television series American Dad!, since the fourth season replacing Ron Jones who left to focus more on composing for Family Guy, including the episode with the Back to the Future parody, and the season five premiere (among others). McNeely has produced both of Seth MacFarlane"s studio albums, 2011"s Music Is Better Than Words, and 2014"s Holiday Foreign Swing.