Peter McConnell

Peter Nelson McConnell (born April 19, 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,^[2] 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.^[3] McConnell and Land co-invented iMUSE, LucasArts' patented interactive music system.^[4]

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),^[5] and Kinectimals.

McConnell is one of the founding members of G.A.N.G., the Game Audio Network Guild. He is also a 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. The score of the game is performed by the Nashville Music Scoring orchestra. 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. He scored the 2021 Psychonauts 2, for which he was nominated for a BAFTA Games Award^[6] and D.I.C.E. Award.^[7] He also wrote music for 2020 film Intersect.^[8]

He married Amy McConnell and they now have two children, Eben and Alice.

Works

Video game soundtracks

Film

Acting

Written works

McConnell, Peter (September 1999). "Dance of the Dead: The Adventures of a Composer Creating the Game Music for Grim Fandango". Electronic Musician. 15 (9). New York: NewBay Media, LLC: 30–32, 35–36, 38–40, 42. ISSN 0884-4720.
US patent 5315057, LAND MICHAEL Z [US]; MCCONNELL PETER N [US], "Method and apparatus for dynamically composing music and sound effects using a computer entertainment system (iMUSE patent)", assigned to LUCASARTS ENTERTAINMENT CO [US]

References

^ MySpace profile of Peter Mc.
^ Bowe, Miles (June 21, 2015). "When Mexican folk music danced with film noir: FACT meets Peter McConnell, the composer behind Grim Fandango". Fact. The Vinyl Factory. Archived from the original on July 13, 2019.
^ According to interview with Peter McConnell in 22/11/2003 Archived July 14, 2011, at the Wayback Machine: "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."
^ Sweet, Michael (October 2, 2014). Writing Interactive Music for Video Games: A Composer's Guide. Addison-Wesley Professional. p. 99. ISBN 978-0321961587. Frustrated with the state of music in games at the time, two composers at LucasArts Peter MccConnell and Michal Land created one of the first adaptive music systems, called iMuse. iMuse (Interactive MUsic Streaming Engine) let composers insert branch and loop markers into a sequence that would allow the music to change based on the decisions of the player. The iMuse engine was one of the first significant contributions to interactive music for video games. Its importance in shaping many of the techniques that you see in video games today cannot be overemphasized. (...)
^ Lucasdelirium.it gives an interview to Peter McConnell.^{[permanent dead link]}
^ Diaz, Ana (June 13, 2021). "Psychonauts 2 finally gets a release date". Polygon. Retrieved August 2, 2021.
^ "25th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards Finalists Revealed". Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. Archived from the original on January 15, 2022. Retrieved February 9, 2024.
^ "Intersect (2020)". FilmAffinity. 2020. Retrieved June 30, 2022.
^ http://www.petermc.com/ ^{[bare URL]}

External links