Jonathan Elias

Jonathan Elias
Background information
Born	1956 New York City, New York, U.S.
Genres	many
Occupation(s)	composer, record producer
Instruments	piano, others
Years active	1976 - present
Labels	Sony Classical
Website	http://www.eliasarts.com/

Jonathan Elias (born 1956) is a U.S. composer and record producer, known for his movie soundtracks, production for several pop and rock acts, and his award-winning advertising music.

Elias was born in New York City in 1956. He started playing piano at the age of six, and was composing his own music by twelve, inspired in part by Broadway musicals. He liked rock music, but also admired Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

He attended the Eastman School of Music with aspirations of becoming a classical composer and conductor, and then Bennington College in Vermont in 1976. While still in school, he cut his teeth doing the music for movie trailers, most notably Alien, and later scored the trailers for Blade Runner, Gandhi, and Back to the Future. He went on to work on numerous movie soundtracks, starting with Children of the Corn and including Tuff Turf, Parents, Chaplin, and more.

He and his brother Scott Elias founded the music and advertising firm Elias Associates in 1980; it later became Elias Arts. The company had several notable successes, including the crunching "Moon Landing" theme used in the top-of-the-hour branding of MTV, the Columbia Pictures logo theme, and the famous Yahoo! yodel.

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