David Carbonara is best known as composer of the critically acclaimed series “Mad Men”, winner of multiple awards including three Golden Globes® and four consecutive Emmy’s® for Outstanding Drama Series. Carbonara’s mix of contemporary score and period jazz inspired many “Mad Men” soundtracks. In that same vein, he produced and composed songs for the Amazon series, “The Last Tycoon”, with the pilot episode being written and directed by Billy Ray, based on the unfinished, final novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
David Carbonara in Feature Films
Carbonara’s latest feature film score is the release of “They/Them/Us“, directed by Jon Sherman and two documentary features for James L. Freedman, “Glickman” and “Carl Laemmle”.
Additionally, in 2016 he composed the independent film “The Congressman”, a political drama starring Treat Williams and Elizabeth Marvel. Another project was David’s score to Matthew Weiner’s “Are You Here” starring Owen Wilson and Zach Galifanikas. Similarly, he scored “Some Girl(s)” written by Neil LaBute with Adam Brody, Zoe Kazan, Emily Watson and Kristen Bell. In 2001, David recorded his score to Working Title’s “The Guru” starring Heather Graham and Marisa Tomei at the famed Abbey Road Studios in London. That score 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”.
Latest Music Releases
His latest music release is the album “Axiom of Choice” with the three singles, Inverse Probability, Non-Constant Function, and The Undefined and Indeterminate. All created using Ableton Live’s randomness controllers. Correspondingly were the three singles, Bossa Sixteen, Blues Orbit, and Selling Me On, as well as the album, “Back to One”.
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). His fourth collaboration with Academy Award-winning composer Rachel Portman was on “The Lake House,” starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. Portman’s other credits encompass Oscar-nominated scores for Lasse Hallström’s “The Cider House Rules” and “Chocolat“, plus 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).
David Carbonara and Mad Men
