Email:

rimarvin@iu.edu

Website:

https://www.richardmarvin.com

Department:

Composition, Music Scoring for Visual Media

Richard Marvin is adjunct professor of music in composition: music scoring for visual media at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, teaching Episodic Television Scoring in Los Angeles at his studio, RMS, since January 2024.

He grew up in suburban Philadelphia and started playing piano at six years old. As a teenager, he began playing in bands and studying classical piano with various teachers in the Philadelphia area, including teachers at Jenkintown Music School and Settlement Music School, where he also studied theory and counterpoint with Donald Rappaport. After graduating from Springfield High School, Marvin enrolled in the jazz studies program at Indiana University, studying jazz with world-renowned jazz educator David Baker and classical piano with Bronja Foster. He also studied composition, orchestration, and electronic music performance while at IU.

Marvin moved to Los Angeles in 1978. He toured for several years with various artists, performing on piano and synthesizers. His interest in electronic instruments led him to become in high demand as a recording session musician, and he became one of the busiest “synthesists” in the 1980s and early 1990s in Los Angeles recording studios. He worked with a variety of composers, including David Newman, Maurice Jarre, Mike Post, Thomas Newman, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, John Debney, Basil Poledouris, Trevor Jones, and many others.

In 1990, Post gave Marvin his first opportunity to cocompose for the television shows Magnum P. I., Hardcastleand McCormick, and Wiseguy. He quickly began composing on his own for television and film in the mid-90s and has had a very busy career ever since. Some of his notable television series include Lincoln Rhyme–Hunt For the Bone Collector, The Years of Living Dangerously, Grimm, Six Feet Under, Without a Trace, The OC, and In Treatment, extensive television movies, and feature films Surrogates, U-571, Breakdown, and the 3 Ninjas series.

Marvin is currently on the Dean’s Advisory Board of the Jacobs School of Music, where he has helped develop the Music Scoring for Visual Media degree program. He has also established a partnership with Film Independent in Los Angeles, which places Jacobs composers in its highly successful program called Project Involve.