Jon & Al Kaplan

Brothers Jon and Al Kaplan moved to Los Angeles in 1996 to study concert composition at USC. After surviving three brutal years under the film music-hating faculty, they finally made it to the film scoring program, where they studied under industry legends like Elmer Bernstein, David Raksin, Leonard Rosenman and Christopher Young. While that was fun, it means absolutely nothing, first because some of those guys aren't legends; second because there wasn't really any "studying" going on; and third because every  person who does the USC program takes lecture classes with those composers and lists them on their bio to make themselves seem impressive.

While we are film composers, it's difficult to break into the industry. But if we wanted to make money, we would have gone to Dental school. Which we would have were we smart enough. We want to write film music because we love film music. We are especially fond of good film music. The following is something you don't often see in a bio, but here are some of the reasons we love film music: John Williams, Howard Shore, Danny Elfman, Alan Silvestri and some of those Newmans. Here are a few dead reasons we love film music: Jerry Goldsmith, Alex North, Jerry Fielding, Michael Small, Bernard Herrmann and Miklos Rozsa. Finally, here are several might-as-well-be dead reasons: Arthur B. Rubenstein, David Shire, Bruce Broughton, Basil Poledouris and Craig Safan.

We also love musicals -- especially Ashman and Menken's Disney stuff, Leslie Bricusse's Scrooge, and Trey Parker and Marc Shaiman's South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. Silence! Silence of the Lambs: The Musical is a labor of love. And it's a good thing it was, because we sure as hell never get to write any music as a labor of money. But in truth, Silence! wasn't labor at all. We had a wonderful time doing it, and as we wrote it for our own amusement, we're surprised that more than 10 people have heard it.

In closing, our father always told us that the mouth is the most disgusting orifice on the human body. He was a dentist before he died, but he ran his practice into the ground because he hated the human mouth so vehemently. Instead, he followed his heart and went back to teaching music to children. This brings us to our most important point: If you work hard, persevere, and follow your dreams, you will eventually die and turn into a skeleton like daddy.

By the way, we did score the Saturn (Sci Fi) Awards Show last year -- our fee was our getting to sit at the same table with Dawn from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She will be 18 soon.

Update: Dawn is now over 18 and a raging whore, so we do not like her anymore. 

Silence! Silence of the Lambs: The Musical © 2003 Jon & Al Kaplan