John Dickson (Film and TV Composer)
Texas native, John Dickson received his musical training at Stephen F. Austin University in Texas, the University of Miami (FL) and at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, earning degrees in Piano/French Horn, Composition, Conducting, and Media Writing and Production. Just after school he worked as a freelance musician in Houston, TX performing with the Houston Symphony, the Houston Grand opera, Theater Under the Stars and several chamber music organizations. He was the Resident Composer at the Alley Theater for two years.
John is now an active composer and arranger working in the film and television industry in LosAngeles, CA. He
composed the main title and underscore for USA’s smash hit “Burn Notice,” and has written scores for many television series, TV movies and films including the Leslie Bibb film, “Miss Nobody,” “The Fall Of Sam Axe,” Fox’s “The Good Guys,” “Killer per Caso,” “A Galaxy Far Far Away,” and too many SyFy features including “Mammoth,” “Alien Lockdown,”
“Lost Colony,” and Mark Lester’s “Pterodactyl.” He has provided additional music and orchestrations for film and TV projects such as “XXX,” “Cool World,” "National Security," “The Wonder Years,” “Stephen King's The Stand,” “Who Killed the Electric Car?” and many others.
John’s continuing collaboration with jazz legend Chick Corea as an orchestrator/ arranger includes new commissions from the New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, works for piano and strings, and the 2000 Grammy Award-winning "Spain for Sextet and Orchestra," recorded by Chick and theLondon Philharmonic. He began his affiliation with Chick co-arranging “Rumble” for the album Songs of West Side Story in 1994. He is also a multiple ASCAP TV and Film Music Award winner.
John has scored over 200 national ads and trailers for clients including Disney, Mattel, Honda,
GM, O & M, J. Walter Thompson, and ABC, and his compositions have appeared in everything from The Oprah Winfrey Show to All My Children and General Hospital, to the Today Show, the NFL on FOX and ABC World News Now.
As an arranger/orchestrator John has worked with some of the all time greats including Chick Corea, Barbra Streisand, U2, Elton John, Billy Joel, Liza Minnelli, Johnny Mathis, Patti Austin, Eddie van Halen, and Kenny Loggins, and he has performed and/or recorded on horn, piano, or vocals with artists such as Alanis Morissette, Bernadette Peters, Harry Connick Jr., Michael Bolton, JamesBarbour, Michael Maguire, Shirley Horn, Alan Parsons, Billy Valentine, Mick Fleetwood, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Lionel Richie, the London Philharmonia, and "Weird" Al Yankovic, and played on dozens of film scores, TV shows, and commercials. He’s a member of SAG/AFTRA, the RMA, AFM, ASCAP, and the Society of Composers and Lyricists.