Joel Corelitz is a classical synthesist, creating emotional design-driven scores for video games and other visual media. He is recognized for blending a classical approach with modern sound design. He wrote the music for the popular Sony PlayStation game The Unfinished Swan, a baroque-style score that cleverly blends electronics with a live string orchestra—garnering him a BAFTA nomination for Best Original Music and Game Audio Network Guild’s Best Audio in an Indie/Casual Game Award. He recently composed the original score for the colorful, genre-bending PS3 game Hohokum as well as Sony’s new game, The Tomorrow Children. His music has also graced numerous short films, brand campaigns, and art installations including Loom, which earned Joel Siggraph’s Best In Show Award and Irrational Exuberance, a first-person virtual reality odyssey by game developer, Ben Vance, set in deep space uniquely designed for room-scale VR, which will be featured at this year’s Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier category. Corelitz also composed the score for the Blumhouse Productions feature, Like Share Follow.

Corelitz was writing and recording music by the age of five, and learned to play both guitar and piano. He studied music technology at the prestigious Oberlin Conservatory of Music, adding the limitless palette of computer-enabled sound to his compositional arsenal.

“People in music often talk about film and TV scores as either being traditional or nontraditional, with nontraditional frequently being characterized as at odds with a classic, melody-based score,” Corelitz says. “[For Unfinished Swan] I wanted to create something that felt like a mix of both, a blending of organic instruments and ambient sound design that would feel fresh ten years from now.”