David Carbonara is the composer of the critically acclaimed series Mad Men, winner of multiple awards including three Golden Globes and four consecutive Emmys for Outstanding Drama Series, and multiply album releases. Recent releases include the album “Back to One” which includes singles: “Blues Orbit”, “Selling Me On…”; and the popular “Bossa Sixteen”.
Feature Films
Carbonara’s latest feature film scores are two documentary features for James L. Freedman, “Glickman” and “Carl Laemmle”, as well as “The Congressman”, an independent political drama starring Treat Williams. Most recently is the 2021 release of “They/Them/Us“, directed by Jon Sherman. Other films include: Matthew Weiner’s “Are You Here” starring Owen Wilson and Zach Galifanikas, “Some Girl(s)” written by Neil LaBute with Emily Watson and Kristen Bell and Working Title’s “The Guru” starring Heather Graham and Marisa Tomei which was recorded at the famed Abbey Road Studios in London and artfully mixed traditional Indian instruments into a western ensemble.
Also internationally, he scored two French produced films for director Amos Kolleck; “Queenie in Love” and “Fast Food, Fast Woman” which premiered at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival; and “Amélia” for Brazilian director Ana Carolina. Additional film credits include David O. Russell’s critically acclaimed “Spanking the Monkey”, and James Ryan’s award-winning “The Young Girl and the Monsoon”.
Television
Other Television work includes another Matthew Weiner (Mad Men) collaboration for Amazon Prime’s “The Romanoffs”, as well as the mini-series, “The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe” and the CBS series, “Vegas,” starring Dennis Quaid and Michael Chiklis for producers Nicholas Pileggi and James Mangold. Also Carbonara scored the TV pilot “Elizabeth Street” in 2000 for executive producer Martin Scorsese and director Miguel Arteta, and composed music for theater productions at the Atlantic Theater Company, Playwright’s Horizon in New York City; and The American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge.
Music Editor
As a music editor, Carbonara has worked on James Mangold’s ”Copland” (staring Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, Harry Keitel, and Ray Liotta), “License To Wed” (starring Robin Williams) and on Bob Odenkirk’s directorial debut, “Let’s Go to Prison” (starring Dax Shepard, and Will Arnett). He also worked on “The Lake House” (starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves) which was his fourth time working with academy-award winning composer Rachel Portman. Carbonara was the music editor on the two Oscar-nominated scores Portman wrote for Director Lasse Hallström’s films, “The Cider House Rules” and “Chocolat”, as well as on her score for Jonathan Demme’s “The Truth About Charlie”.
Carbonara’s work as a music editor also had him collaborating with directors Ron Howard, M. Night Shyamalan, David Mamet, Milos Forman, Stanley Tucci, Steve Buscemi and Robert Benton; and for academy-award winning composers, Michel Legrand and Howard Shore. And it was all carried out in New York’s famous The Brill Building at 1619 Broadway.
A former jazz and touring trombonist, Carbonara has a bachelor degree in film scoring from the Berklee College of Music (1985).
