McCarthy, Dennis (1945-Present)

He is a composer, arranger and keyboard player born in the United States who started out in the late 1960s when he was asked by the country singer-songwriter to perform the keyboards on his “Gentle On My Mind” and the Grammy Award winning “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”.

He went on to act as Glen Campbell’s conductor and arranger before becoming his music director for his television variety show. He stayed in that position for four years and later held the same position for The Barbara Mandrell Show.

He started working with the composer Alex North where he held the position of his scoring assistant in the late 1970s but by the early ‘80s he had decided to further his career by concentrating on composition.

In 1981 he wrote the score for Enos, which was a spin-off series for the successful Dukes of Hazzard. He then went on to write scores for numerous movies-of-the-week and TV series such as Breast Men, Burke’s Law, Dynasty, MacGyver, McHale’s Navy, Night of he Demon,Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, Sliders, the revived The Twilight Zone and V: The Final Battle.

1987 was when he began to get more attention as he was taken on as a composer for Star Trek: The Next Generation. This was so successful that he went on to compose scores every other Star Trek series since as well as for the 1994 movie Star Trek: Generations. In total this was 260 episodes

Having been nominated for an Emmy Award nine times, he was successful in 1993 for his theme music for Deep Space Nine and then again three years later in 1996 for “Unification, Part 1” from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

In more recent years he has written the score for the sitcom Related and been the composer of several plays staged by the South Coast Repertory in California.

As a composer, arranger and/or musician his work has featured on countless recordings with just a few of them including Lion King & Other Movie Hits by the American Film Orchestra, The Legacy 1961-2002, Live in Japan and Southern Nights by Glen Campbell, Vol. 1: 1965-1970 by The Hondells, Symphonic Star Trek by Erich Kunzel, Oasis by Ray Kelley, The Music of Star Trek: The First 30 Years… by London Pops Orchestra, Sci-Fi by The Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, The Cult Files by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Ol’ Yellow Eyes is Back by Brent Spiner, Surf Route 101 by The Super Stocks, Summer of ’42 by Roger Williams,

He has won 18 ASCAP Awards and in 2010 he was honoured with the ASCAP Golden Note Award.

Glen Campbell Recordings
The William Tell Overture (Gioachino Rossini) (arranger)
Capital 4376 (S93526) (US 45)

Sources:

McCarthy, Dennis (1945-Present)

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