Home » Jazz Musicians » Dave Slonaker

Dave Slonaker

Dave Slonaker is a film and TV orchestrator, arranger, and composer and leader of the Dave Slonaker Big Band. His album, Intrada, featuring his compositions and arrangements, received a 2013 GRAMMY® nomination for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. 

In his work as a film and TV orchestrator, arranger, and composer, he has orchestrated and arranged for many Hollywood composers including John Addison, David Bell, Steve Bramson, Bruce Broughton, Danny Elfman, Joel McNeely, Alan Silvestri, Larry Rosenthal, and many others. Film credits include orchestration for many popular films including Oz the Great and Powerful, Alice in Wonderland, Spider-Man, Air Force One. He has also orchestrated, arranged, and composed music for TV and animation including Jag, Murder, She Wrote, and the Tiny Toons Adventures cartoon series. 

Equally at home as a jazz composer and arranger, Dave’s compositions and arrangements have been performed by Clark Terry, the Woody Herman and Count Basie Orchestras, as well as many other soloists and bands. Before moving to Hollywood, Dave was composer-in-residence at the Strasenburgh Planetarium of the Rochester Museum and Science Center, composing electronic soundtracks in an eclectic blend of music genres for worldwide distribution. 

Dave grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Handed down a trombone by his father, he studied trombone and piano as a youth. Curious about classical, jazz, and popular styles of music, he was determined to study both classical and jazz composition and performance. He earned a Bachelor of Music Degree in Trombone and Composition at Indiana University, had advanced graduate study in composition at the University of Pennsylvania, and received a Masters Degree from the Eastman School of Music. His teachers include Rayburn Wright, Manny Album, David Baker, Bill Dobbins, John Eaton, and George Crumb.

Believing that passing the craft of composing and arranging to a new generation is important, Dave has taught or given master classes at USC, the Eastman School of Music, the ASCAP Television & Film Scoring Workshop, the American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers (ASMAC), and the Los Angeles Ravel Orchestral Study Group.


Tags

15
Year in Review

Jack Bowers' Best Jazz Albums Of 2022

Read "Jack Bowers' Best Jazz Albums Of 2022" reviewed by Jack Bowers


As the Covid pandemic slowly recedes into America's rear-view mirror, jazz groups of all sizes and shapes have begun performing and recording again, making 2022 a rather good year over-all for fans and reviewers alike. New artists, new sounds and new approaches have combined to lend assurance that jazz remains in good hands and will continue to live long and prosper. Here are some of the best albums we heard and reviewed this year, in no particular order save for ...

6
Album Review

Dave Slonaker: Convergency

Read "Convergency" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci


In December 1910, Virginia Woolf once observed, human character changed and, along with it, so did everything else. Politics, society, religion, sex, all of it, she thought, would leave the ancien regime behind. And, to a point, she was correct. Within a few years, the old world was gone, swept away by war and revolution. It was not coming back. Ever. Somehow, listening to the marvelous musical products of modern big bands, Woolf seems oddly relevant. The level ...

45
Album Review

Dave Slonaker Big Band: Convergency

Read "Convergency" reviewed by Jack Bowers


While big-band albums generally differ, sometimes widely, in tone and temperament, there are definitive criteria by which every one may be evaluated--arrangements, performers, sound quality, sequencing and, above all, the elusive but imperative swing quotient. Dave Slonaker checks all those boxes and more on Convergency, a superlative successor to his excellent Grammy-nominated debut album, Intrada, released in 2013. To begin with, Slonaker, best known as a film and television composer, is an excellent big-band writer and arranger, ...

9
Album Review

Dave Slonaker Big Band: Convergency

Read "Convergency" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Composer/conductor Dave Slonaker probably won't qualify as “prolific," at least based on recorded output alone, as he spends a lot of his time behind the scenes in film and television work—but one must appreciate the level of craftsmanship that he brings to his big band projects. His debut release, Intrada (Origin Records, 2014), received a well-earned Grammy nomination, and his sophomore effort is no less accomplished, with the well-designed compositions and outstanding ensemble work that justify all the attention it ...

3
Album Review

Dave Slonaker Big Band: Intrada

Read "Intrada" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Don't be put off by the name. Intrada, composer / arranger Dave Slonaker points out, is “a musical form often composed as a prelude, overture or fanfare," one whose upbeat phrases give rise to an exhilarating curtain-raiser on Slonaker's initial big-band recording. Rest assured this is a world-class ensemble and there's no doubt whose steady hand is at the helm: Slonaker wrote every number save the standard “It's Only a Paper Moon" and arranged the complete package. ...

Read more articles

Recording

Three West Coast Jazz Videos

Three West Coast Jazz Videos

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Last week, Bill Kirchner in New York and Danilo Morandi in Switzerland sent along a few superb videos. Bill sent along a link to the Dave Slonaker Big Band recording their Intrada album (Origin Records) at Capitol Studios' Studio A in Hollywood in 2016. Here's Dave Slonaker's composition and arrangement of Remembering, featuring Wayne Bergeron, Dan Fornero, Rick Baptist, Clay Jenkins and Ron Stout (trumpets); Bob Sheppard, Brian Scanlon, Rob Lockart, Tom Luer and Adam Schroeder (woodwinds); Alex Iles, Bob ...

Concerts

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Convergency

Origin Records
2022

buy

Intrada

Origin Records
2014

buy

Convergency

From: Convergency
By Dave Slonaker

Videos

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.