Bear McCreary is an American composer and musician living in Los Angeles, California. He is best known for his work on the reimagined “Battlestar Galactica” television series and for the TV series “The Walking Dead” and more recently McCreary won an Emmy for his role in “Da Vinci’s Demons” for which he composes all the music.

McCreary, of Irish and Armenian descent, was born in Fort Laud- erdale, Florida, and spent most of his formative years in Belling- ham, Washington. He is the son of author Laura Kalpakian and professor Jay McCreary of the University of Hawaii.

McCreary earned degrees in Composition and Recording Arts from the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, and is a classically trained pianist and avid accordionist. He studied under the renowned film score composer Elmer Bernstein during which time he reconstructed and reorchestrated Bernstein’s 1963 score for “Kings of the Sun.” Their collaboration allowed for the complete score to be available as a soundtrack album for the first time in forty years.He has also directed and produced several music videos for his brother Brendan McCreary’s band, Young Beautiful in a Hurry.

McCreary has composed all the music for “Da Vinci’s Demons”, an American historical fantasy drama series that presents a fictional account of Leonardo Da Vinci’s early life. The series premiered in the United States in 2013 and was renewed for a second season, which debuted March 22, 2014.

As an accordionist, “Prelude to War” for Accordion Orchestra, in which he plays all the parts, is a project he initiated after seeing fans uploading performances to YouTube of his piano compositions for the series, on instruments other than piano. He wondered if he could contribute something himself and he picked up his accordion and started playing around with some of his “Battlestar Galactica” tunes.

Bear says: “The only piece from the “Battlestar Galactica” (BSG) score that actually featured accordion was “The Dance” from Season 3, and of course, making a video of that was always an option. But, that piece is fairly repetitive and not a good example of all the sounds an accordion can create. So, I wanted to try something a little more ambitious, well, actually a LOT more ambitious. I decided to try one of the most complex and dynamic pieces I ever wrote for Battlestar: “Prelude to War.”

“My first plan was to arrange it in such a way that it could be played in one take. While this is technically possible, it required dramatic alterations to the music and there were elegant contrapuntal lines that would have had to be completely removed from the music. So, I opened the door to al- lowing ‘a few’ over- dubs. ‘A few’quickly escalated!

“Eventually, I decided that I’d try to recreate EVERY SINGLE NOTE from “Prelude to War” and transcribe them exactly as they existed in the original recording to the accor- dion. The percussion was especially challenging, and I had to get clever with my mic placement to get something even vaguely re- sembling a taiko drum sound out of my antique instrument.

“But, I think it worked. Every sound you are hearing in this song is coming from my accordion. I recorded it all through a Sennheiser MZX 8000, and used minimal EQs. I ran the final mix through a simple Altiverb concert hall setting. There are no samples, no hidden instruments, no trick edits.”

For more information on this engaging young Hollywood composer and accordion lover, please visit: www.bearmccreary.com.