Next week, Berklee College of Music welcomes an addition to its Film Scoring Department: composer George S. Clinton. As the new Chair of Film Scoring at Berklee, Clinton will build on the department’s 32-year legacy and ensure that graduates have the skills to thrive in a field that is undergoing continual transformation.

Clinton is an award-winning film composer, who has built an irrefutable reputation with scores under his belt such as those for the Austin Powers’ movies, Mortal Kombat, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, among others. He began his professional musical career as a songwriter, arranger and session musician in Nashville and eventually ended up in Los Angeles as a staff writer for Warner Bros. Music. While in this position, Clinton’s songs were recorded by legends such as Michael Jackson, Joe Cocker, and Smokey Robinson. 

Clinton developed his craft by scoring “ninja” movies for Cannon Films as well as network and cable television movies and miniseries. He has worked on a number of different projects, including scoring the Showtime anthology Red Show Diaries, along with Wild Things (1998), The Astronaut’s Wife (1999), Lansky (1999), Disney’s The Santa Clause 2 (2002) and The Santa Clause 3 (2006), among many more. 

With his impressive resume, its no surprise that Clinton has received accolades for his work, including a Grammy nomination and nine BMI Film Music Awards. He is the recipient of BMI’s highest honor – The Richard Kirk Career Achievement Award for Musical Excellence. 

The Berklee community is ecstatic to have the one and only George S. Clinton as a resource for our ever-growing thirst for knowledge. And he seems pretty excited to be here as well.

Now all I have to figure out is how to get into those Film Scoring classes…