East Studio Building, JS328
Education
- M.M., Composition, University of California, San Diego, 1983
- B.M., Composition, University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music, 1979
Biography
Larry Groupé is professor of composition: music scoring for visual media at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
One of the most talented and versatile composers in the entertainment industry today, he enjoys an impressive musical resume in film and television as well as on the concert stage, and his achievements have received both critical praise and popular acclaim.
Some of his most recent film scores include “Straw Dogs,” directed by Rod Lurie and starring James Marsden, Kate Bosworth, and Alexander Skarsgård, which won a Global Music Award (2012); “Nothing but the Truth,” starring Kate Beckinsale, Matt Dillon, and Alan Alda, a compelling political drama about first-amendment rights; and “Resurrecting the Champ,” starring Samuel L. Jackson and Josh Hartnett. All collaborations were with writer-director Rod Lurie. Currently, Groupé is composing a new score about the John Hinkley assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan.
Most notably, Groupé wrote the score for “The Contender,” starring Joan Allen, Gary Oldman, and Jeff Bridges, a highly regarded political drama written and directed by Rod Lurie which received multiple Academy Award nominations. This led them to “Commander in Chief,” which became the most successful new TV series when launched by ABC. Groupé also enjoyed special recognition when he teamed with the classic rock group YES, co-composing 10 original songs on the CD “Magnification” as well as writing overtures and arrangements, and conducting the YES Symphonic Orchestra on its 2002 world tour.
In 2004, he was nominated for a primetime Emmy as the composer of best original score for ABC’s drama series “Line of Fire.” He wrote the music for Mike Binder's comedy series “The Mind of the Married Man” on HBO as well as for “Man About Town,” starring Ben Affleck. Groupé received special recognition for his score of Lurie’s early release “Deterrence,” a doomsday thriller starring Kevin Pollack and Timothy Hutton.
Prior to this, a project based on Ed Wood’s last script, “I Woke Up Early the Day I Died,” gave him an opportunity to write an unusual score for a silent movie produced by and starring Billy Zane. Groupé recorded his original score for the docudrama “Missions” with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios. The series launched in Europe in 2005.
Groupé has received three Emmy Awards: Best Original Documentary Score, for “Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story” (2013), Best Original Score–Short Subject, for “Residue” (2009), a short-subject film about the early U.S. involvement in Cambodia, and Best Original Documentary Score, for “Jonas Salk: Personally Speaking” (1998). He’s composed the music for a variety of features that have shown at the Sundance, Berlin, and Toronto international film festivals.
A graduate of the Conservatory of Music at the University of the Pacific, he began his senior year as the recipient of the ASCAP award for student composers. He went on to earn his Master of Music in Composition at the University of California at San Diego, where he studied with Roger Reynolds, Toru Takemitsu, and Pauline Oliveros. Subsequently, his composing, orchestrating, and conducting skills took him to the world of film scoring, where he won the New York Film Award for Best Score.
Groupé has composed, conducted and produced over 80 CD recordings. His music has been performed by a number of symphony orchestras, and his “Water Unfolding,” a fantasy for orchestra commissioned by the San Diego Symphony, was warmly received by the public and critics alike. “Menagerie,” a suite for solo organ, was commissioned by the Spreckels Organ Society for its eighty-fifth birthday and performed at the world’s largest outdoor organ pavilion, in San Diego’s Balboa Park.
Currently, Groupé is preparing for the world premiere of his commissioned string quartet “Prometheus Unwound” for the California Institute of Technology, to be performed inside the Palomar Observatory in San Diego, Calif.