Frank Macchia

After touring Europe with productions of West Side Story and 42nd Street, Macchia moved to Burbank, California and began composing and orchestrating for television and film.

Macchia has worked on more than 300 film and television productions including orchestration for: Your Highness, I Am Number Four, Astro Boy, Transformers, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Dreamgirls, Superman Returns, The Santa Clause 2, and Austin Powers in Goldmember.

Macchia’s television music composition credits include: Nickelodeon’s Oh Yeah! Cartoons and Fox TV’s Night Visions.

Original stories in the style of 1950’s horror comic books, were performed by actors including Dave Florek, Jim McDonnell, and Susan Hull, with artwork created by Guy Vasilovich.

Each volume consisted of 4 to 5 stories with musical soundtracks by created by Macchia.

Several pieces of music from this series were recorded by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra.

Billboard magazine described this unusual approach:

"'What makes this audio unique is its film-like musical score. The audiobook's co-author Macchia, an award-winning composer, tailored the original music to the actors' performances. The result is a perfect marriage of words and music that sets an effective, creepy atmosphere.'"

Macchia has recorded a series of eclectic original projects featuring some of the best musicians in Los Angeles as well as European orchestras.

Frank Macchia (born October 12, 1958) is an American composer, arranger, saxophonist, and multi-reed player in Los Angeles.

Originally from San Francisco he began playing clarinet at age 10 and later studied bassoon, saxophone and flute.

At 14 he began studying musical composition and writing jazz and classical music pieces.

He is known for his large catalog of eclectic and virtuosic original compositions spanning jazz, classical, Cajun, Americana, experimental, New Age, Spoken Word, and jazz-fusion styles as well as his extensive work as a composer and orchestrator for live television and television and film soundtracks.

Macchia has been noted for his jazz and orchestral arrangements of traditional American folk songs.

In 1976, Macchia attended Berklee College of Music where he studied woodwinds with Joe Viola, Joseph Allard, and Steve Grossman.

His composition and arranging teachers included Herb Pomeroy, Phil Wilson, Tony Texiera, Ken Pullig, and Greg Hopkins.

In 1979, Macchia received DownBeat magazine’s award (second place) for best original big band composition.

In 1980, he was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to compose a jazz/classical suite for large ensemble.

After earning a degree in Traditional Composition, Macchia taught at Berklee from 1980 to 1981.

From 1981 to 1992, Macchia lived in the San Francisco Bay Area where he continued composing and performing with his own ensembles; The Gleets, Desperate Character, and The Frankie Maximum Band.

He also performed with many other artists including Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, The Temptations, Clare Fischer, and Chuck Mangione.

Macchia produced and released two CDs of original music during this period: Introducing Frankie Maximum and Frankie Maximum Goes Way-er Out West which foreshadowed some of his later work.

Voting Frankie Maximum Goes Way-er Out West one of the Top Ten Records of the Year in 1991 Larry Kelp of the Oakland Tribune said:

"A cult masterpiece. Those who have heard it agree, this is a monster of a record."

For several years (1992-2010), Macchia created music and arrangements for The Tonight Show band.

From 1997 to 2001, Macchia and writer/actress Tracy London collaborated on a series of 5 orchestrated Spoken word productions called Little Evil Things.

In 2003, he released The Galapagos Suite, a set of 6 pieces, each capturing his musical impression of one of the species that inhabit the Galapagos Islands.

The record features Macchia (woodwinds and synthesizers), Billy Childs (piano) Valarie King (flutes), Beverly Dahlke-Smith (bassoon) Grant Geissman (guitar), Alex Iles, Ken Kugler, and Bruce Fowler, (trombones).

While this recording was generally received as a ‘new age’ project, Macchia had begun his exploration of unusual instrumental combinations, particularly low register brass and woodwind instruments.

In 2004, Macchia released Animals which continued to explore his interest in program music and leitmotif.

Each piece is named after an animal (tigers, gorillas, camels, etc.).

Specific instruments and thematic ideas are used to represent the personality of each animal; for example, the tuba plays the role of the hippo.

The pieces cover a wide range of musical styles, from accessible modern jazz to evolving, complex Brazilian-influenced arrangements.

Macchia blends complex polyrhythms and intricately layered ensemble passages with open solo sections, relaxed grooves, and splashes of musical humor.

The ensemble, augmented by Wayne Bergeron (trumpet and flugelhorn), Scott Breadman (percussion), Dave Carpenter (bass), Stephanie Fife (cello), Mark Isham (trumpet), Tracy London (voice), and former Frank Zappa sideman Vinnie Colaiuta (drums), is well suited for the technical challenges of Macchia’s music.

Mo’ Animals was released in 2006, and in many ways is a continuation of Macchia’s 2004 release.

The recording uses most of the same musicians with the notable addition of the virtuosic Howard Levy (best known as a founding member of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones) on harmonica.

In 2006, Macchia released Emotions, another highly programmatic project in which each piece is loosely inspired by a primary human emotion.

The recording features Macchia performing with the Prague Orchestra conducted by Adam Klemens.

This recording also revisits Macchia’s recurring interest in American folk music with arrangements of "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair" and "The Lonesome Road".