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American composer
Scott Elder Harper
Scott Harper receiving the first of his two Emmy Awards, 1986.
Background information
Birth name
Scott Gleckler
Born
(1952-12-22) December 22, 1952 (age 72) Pasadena, California, US
Emmy Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition (1986), Emmy Awards for Individual Achievement in Music Composition (1990)
Musical artist
Scott Elder Harper (born Scott Gleckler; December 22, 1952) is an American composer, arranger and musician for motion picture and television scores and orchestra, as well as a multi-instrumentalist, conductor, and session-player for pop music. With a background in popular music, Harper has composed theater pieces, oratorios, orchestral chamber works, and dynamic and diverse ensemble arrangements with various instrumental combinations for popular recording artists and film scores alike. His work includes conducting and album arrangements for Celine Dion, Cher, and Olivia Newton-John. He has performed on multiple original motion picture soundtracks, such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1983), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) — scored by John Williams — and The Right Stuff (1983), by Bill Conti, as a double bass player in the Hollywood Studio Symphony Orchestra. He has also composed several original scores for documentary feature films.
Biography
Scott E. Harper was born in Pasadena, California, to David Gleckler and Sarah Lee. He has two brothers, Steve and Jim, and a sister, Milly. In 1975, Scott attended the Royal College of Music in London for composition, cello, and piano, before majoring in double bass. He graduated with honors in 1977 in only two years. The Royal College of Music awarded him the Cobbett Prize for "Freer Thou", his composition with clarinet, violoncello, and piano.
His feature film compositions include Eat and Run, Orion's Belt, Rendez-vous, Reborn, To Hell With Love. A film critic states in Variety magazine that "Movies benefit greatly from Scott Harper's jazz-inflected scores because the score infectiously adds wily, contrapuntal undertones and smart upbeat riffs to the action".[1] Harper wrote the original underscores to numerous feature-length documentary specials during the mid-1980s. From adventurous National Geographic Specials to comedy prime-time TV series, Harper composed music with variety in style to a wide-range audience. In 1986, Scott Harper and co-writer Lyn Murray were awarded an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition for the National Geographic Special: Miraculous Machines.[2] Then in 1990, Special BMI Awards were honoring Composers work in film and prime-time television. Harper was awarded a second Emmy in the Music Categories for "Amazon, Land of The Flooded Forest", a National Geographic Special on PBS.[3]
Harper's compositions won the Sunny Awards (GTE) competition, including 1st Place in the Campaign category and 1st place in the Music category.
In 1980, he changed his name from Gleckler to Harper.
Harper married Susan Picking Harper in 1994. They have a daughter named Lauralee.
