BIOGRAPHY
Los Angeles-based composer, orchestrator, and conductor Jeff Kryka ("krick-ah") has been awarded by Turner Classic Movies, ASCAP, the RMALA, and the Henry Mancini Foundation. He is a Steinway Artist. His work has been featured in major motion pictures, TV series, video games, and heard in concert halls around the world. His projects have grossed over $20 billion, including 10 films that crossed the $1 billion mark in global box office.
Originally from Rochester, MN, Kryka studied music composition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with composers Laura Schwendinger, Stephen Dembski, and Joel Naumann, receiving his undergraduate degree in 2006. He did graduate study at the University of California-Los Angeles with composers Paul Chihara, Roger Bourland, Ian Krouse, and David Lefkowitz, receiving his masters degree in 2008, and his PhD in 2011. At UCLA he also studied film music with composers Charles Fox, Laura Karpman, and orchestration with Bruce Broughton. He has taught music theory, ear training, and composition at UCLA and the Colburn Conservatory of Music, and serves on the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music Alumni Board.
In 2006 Kryka was named the First Prize winner of the Turner Classic Movies Young Film Composers Competition. His score was chosen out of a field of 650 international participants, judged by film composer Hans Zimmer. In 2008 Kryka participated in ASCAP’s Film and Television Scoring Workshop with Richard Bellis and was honored by the ASCAP Foundation as a recipient of the David Rose Scholarship and a grant from the RMALA.
In 2010 Kryka began collaborating with film composer Michael Giacchino and has since orchestrated many of his projects. He has also contributed orchestrations for Laura Karpman, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Alex Lacamoire, Nathan Johnson, John Debney, and Brian Tyler among many others.
In 2019 Kryka composed the score for the critically-acclaimed Disney+ documentary series The Imagineering Story, directed by Leslie Iwerks. The series focuses on the creation and history of the Disney theme parks around the world and the innovators who design and build them, beginning with Disneyland in 1955. Kryka followed up his collaboration with Iwerks in 2023 composing the score for the 3-part Max documentary series Superpowered: The DC Story.
Kryka's arrangements of music by J.S. Bach for string orchestra and solo violin, featuring violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and the English Chamber Orchestra, are available on eOne Records release of Air: The Bach Album.