About Us » William Stromberg

WILLIAM STROMBERG
Composer/Conductor

Growing up in a family rich with filmmaking talent, it should come as no surprise that guest conductor William T. Stromberg would catch the artistic fever and branch off into his own areas of movie-magic expertise. Father William R. Stromberg is a long-time visual effects artist and film director (The Crater Lake Monster), and brother Robert R. Stromberg is an Oscar-nominated visual effects artist for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, and winner of three Emmy awards for John Adams, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Obviously, maestro Stromberg's particular talents leaned to the aural instead of the visual and he's not only gifted as a conductor and orchestrator, but film composer as well. He began playing the French horn and studying composition in elementary school under teacher Rudy Tate (a regular performer in the San Diego area) and started composing film scores a short time later for his and his brother's home movies. He studied composition with film composer/film score reconstructionist John W. Morgan, developing a decades-long friendship that continues to this day. Mostly self-taught, Stromberg began conducting his own feature-film scores (as well as Morgan's) while also studying with famed conducting coach Bill Kettering, who taught such composers/conductors as David Newman, Randy Newman, and Thomas Newman.

He has composed music for over twenty-five films, including the Academy Award®-winning documentary Trinity and Beyond and Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (both with Morgan), Killing Streets, Atomic Journeys, and Bugs and Army of the Dead for the Sci-Fi Channel. He has also composed music with lovely wife Anna Bonn for such films as Dismembered and The Inner Circle, and conducted regularly for composer Rolfe Kent, including the scores for Legally Blonde, Gun Shy, Election, and Nurse Betty. He composed and orchestrated music for Steven Spielberg's Tiny Toon Adventures and Batman: The Animated Series; combined techno music with full orchestra on Robert Folk's score for Lawnmower Man 2; and orchestrated and conducted for David Schwartz on the hit TV series Northern Exposure. He also orchestrated and conducted the scores for the miniseries The Triangle and the film The Messengers, both composed by Joseph LoDuca.

Phenomenally diverse, Stromberg toured with the rock group Yes in 2001 for the ‘Yes Symphonic Tour across America,' not only composing the overture for the show, but conducting the orchestra onstage with the band as well. He has also been heavily involved in performing classic Americana concert music by such composers as Ferd Grofé, Robert Russell Bennett and Meredith Willson.

In addition to all those accomplishments, Stromberg has worked steadily with Morgan for nearly fifteen years in rescuing, restoring and rerecording classic film scores on the Marco Polo (Naxos) and BMG labels, as well as their own Tribute Film Classics, resulting in an astounding seventy-five different titles on 36 CDs. Just a few of the films represented are Hans Salter's House of Frankenstein, Roy Webb's Cat People, Erich Wolfgang Korngold's The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Sea Hawk, Alfred Newman's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Max Steiner's King Kong, Son of Kong, The Most Dangerous Game and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Film music fans have been ecstatic over the results.

In 2007, Stromberg, Morgan and Bonn formed Tribute Film Classics with the mission to record deserved scores in complete renditions - including music that may have been omitted or edited from the final film - that have either been ignored or survive in less than pristine condition. Tribute formally launched the label with Bernard Herrmann's tremendous Mysterious Island, an award-winning and universally celebrated recording that was followed immediately by Herrmann's Fahrenheit 451, also to unanimous accolades. Tribute's most recent releases are Steiner's mystically adventurous She and Hermann's rousing Americana scores for The Kentuckian and Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot - again with superior reviews for all.

As a conductor, Stromberg demands and receives richly nuanced performances from his orchestras. All of the Tribute recordings have been performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, with which he has a strong and communicative relationship, resulting in virtually flawless performances of extremely difficult compositions. In a recent interview, Stromberg said, “I have grown as a conductor and have become much more confidant, which translates to a much more vibrant and gutsy performance from the orchestra.”

Already recorded for the Tribute label are Steiner's The Charge of the Light Brigade (guaranteed to astound as a vigorous orchestral workout) and Arsenic and Old Lace, along with Korngold's The Prince and the Pauper. Stromberg's latest original film score (again with Morgan) is The Lost Skeleton Returns Again, the sequel to the hilarious parody The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.

At only 44 years of age, Stromberg has exhibited an extraordinary dedication to the art of film music composition and restoration - and he shows no signs of slowing down. In addition to completing work on the previously mentioned rerecordings, Tribute plans to reconstruct and record Frank Skinner's Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, a much-desired title for horror fans the world over. Stromberg is also at work on two new documentary film scores -- The Battle of Bunker Hill for Skip Malinowski and Sam and the Neutron Bomb for Pete Kuran.

And - returning to the familial roots where it all started - he intends to make a film with brother Robert that will undoubtedly please both aural and visual sensibilities alike.

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