Bio

Bruce Broughton is best known for his many motion picture scores, which include Silverado, Tombstone, The Rescuers Down Under, The Presidio, Miracle on 34th Street, Homeward Bound, and Harry and the Hendersons. His television themes include The Orville, JAG, Steven Spielberg’s Tiny Toon Adventures, and Dinosaurs; and his scores for television range from mini-series (Texas Rising and The Blue and Gray) to TV movies (Warm Springs, O Pioneers!) and include countless episodes for television series such as Dallas, Quincy, Hawaii Five-O, and How the West Was Won.

With 24 nominations, Broughton has won a record 10 Emmy awards. His score to Silverado was Oscar-nominated, and his score to Young Sherlock Holmes was nominated for a Grammy. His music has accompanied many of the Disney theme park attractions throughout the world, and his score for Heart of Darkness was the first recorded orchestral score for a video game.

Many of Broughton’s concert works have been performed by the Cleveland Orchestra; the Chicago, Seattle, and National Symphonies; the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; the Sinfonia of London; and the Hollywood Bowl. He recently recorded his oboe concerto, And on the Sixth Day; String Theory for string orchestra; and his Concerto for Horn with the London Symphony Orchestra, for Naxos Records.

The Concerto for Horn and Orchestra was commissioned by the Houston Symphony; the Fanfare for 16 Horns was jointly commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the International Horn Society and premiered at the Hollywood Bowl. His commissioned works for Winds include A Celebration Overture; Grimm Tales; Fanfares, Marches, Hymns and Finale; and Masters of Space and Time. Broughton’s Heroes was chosen as the 2020 Championship Section Final for The National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain.

Broughton has also had numerous works for chamber ensembles performed and recorded, including his Five Pieces for Piano, recorded by pianist Gloria Cheng; Excursions for trumpet and band, recorded by trumpet virtuoso Philip Smith; and his string quartet Fancies, recorded and commissioned by the Lyris Quartet.

Broughton is currently a board member of ASCAP, a former governor of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as well as a past president and founding member of The Society of Composers and Lyricists. He has taught composition and orchestration at USC’s Department of Screen Scoring in the Thornton School of Music and at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. He is composer-in-residence for 2023–2024 at the University of North Texas College of Music.

Organizations