Peter McConnell

For the cricket umpire, see Peter McConnell (umpire). For the footballer, see Peter McConnell (footballer).
Peter McConnell

Peter McConnell in 2010
Background information
Birth name Peter N. McConnell
Also known as Peter Mc, Pete McConnell
Born 1960 (age 55–56)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Genres Various
Occupation(s) Composer, musician
Years active 1991–present
Associated acts Clint Bajakian
Michael Land
The Gone Jackals
Website petermc.com

Peter N. McConnell (born 1960),[1] also known as Peter Mc, is an American video game composer and musician, best known for his work at LucasArts and for composing the soundtracks for every Sly Cooper game since the second installment.

Biography

McConnell was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Peter studied music as an undergraduate at Harvard University in the 1980s under Timothy Vincent Clarke, Curt Cacioppo and Ivan Tcherepnin. In Harvard McConnell befriended the future LucasArts composer Michael Land, who composed many of the company's titles, and worked with him at the audio company Lexicon. While beginning his career in the Sound Department at LucasArts, Land needed someone who would both compose and implement music into his second project Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge and McConnell stepped in.[2] McConnell and Land co-invented iMUSE, LucasArts' patented interactive music system.

During his time at LucasArts, McConnell composed many soundtracks for games such as those in the Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and Star Wars series. Notable titles from this time include Grim Fandango, scored with unique Mexican influenced jazz, klezmer and traditional film score style, and Full Throttle, featuring rock soundtrack which McConnell scored with rock group The Gone Jackals. While composing music for these two games, McConnell worked closely with Tim Schafer, who later hired him to compose scores for the titles Psychonauts, Brütal Legend, and Costume Quest for his company Double Fine Productions.

McConnell left LucasArts in 2000, but contributed to Escape from Monkey Island and special edition of The Secret of Monkey Island. Since then, McConnell has composed scores for Psychonauts, Sly 2: Band of Thieves, Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves (about which McConnell says that he was influenced by Henry Mancini works),[3] and Kinectimals.

McConnell is one of the founding members of G.A.N.G., the Game Audio Network Guild . He is also known live-action music performer, playing the electric violin.

In 2013, McConnell returned to the Sly Cooper franchise to score the fourth game, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, which was released in February of that year. Also, for the first time ever, McConnell's entire score was released on iTunes to accompany the release of the game.

Recently, McConnell has worked on the Double Fine titles Broken Age and the remastered version of Grim Fandango, both of which include performances by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. McConnell has also been announced to return to score the upcoming Psychonauts 2, set to be released in 2018.[4]

Gameography

Written works

References

  1. ↑ MySpace profile of Peter Mc.
  2. ↑ According to interview with Peter McConnell in 22/11/2003: "Michael Land and I had been working on projects together since we were at Harvard in the 80's. He really started the Sound Department at LucasArts, and was looking for someone who could both compose and design code, and I guess he figured I would fit the job pretty well. He must have been right, since I ended up working there for nearly 10 years."
  3. ↑ Lucasdelirium.it gives an interview to Peter McConnell.
  4. ↑ MacDonald, Keza (December 3, 2015). "How Psychonauts 2 Came to Be". Kotaku. Retrieved December 3, 2015.

Further reading

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