Bio
I’m Darien Shulman. I’m a music composer and producer, keyboardist, vocalist, and educator. Over the past two decades I’ve dedicated my life to helping tell stories through sound. My music has appeared in television, film, commercials, podcasts, and theater.
It all started on my 11th birthday, when my parents bought me a Yamaha PSR-400, an at-the-time popular and affordable digital synthesizer. After a few weeks of exploring the keyboard, I had an “a-ha” moment when I discovered that on the right-hand side was a five-channel midi recording tool. With a little practice, I composed my first song, and I’ve been making music ever since.
I was 20 years old when I decided to pursue music as a career, and by the time I finished my undergrad studies (Northwestern University, BMus) I had three short film scores under my belt. After finishing up grad school (Juilliard, MMus), I had four more. I came to love both the challenge of creating music to help storytellers communicate their own vision, and the process of developing unique sound palettes, melodies, themes, and atmospheres for each new project that would come along.
I’m perhaps best known for scoring the award-winning Netflix mockumentary series “American Vandal”, a result of my long-time collaboration with filmmakers Tony Yacenda and Dan Perrault. I’m incredibly proud to have been a part of this series; if you haven’t seen it yet, go watch it. Among other tv projects I’ve scored are the docuseries “For Heaven’s Sake” (Prime), and “Players” (Apple), and nearly two dozen broadcast commercials. Over the years, I’ve developed a reputation for being particularly adept at landing important hit-points in the picture, while retaining coherent musicality.
I believe that music for film and television acts as an additional unseen character, serving to heighten the emotional impact of the story, and draw the audience’s attention to particular moments, characters and plot points. Music, even when purely instrumental, has its own story to tell, even if it’s so abstract that it is entirely created through the listener’s own interpretation.
I love making music. I’d like to make some music for you.
