Biography

Composer Justin Hurwitz became best known for his jazz-oriented work with college friend and film director Damien Chazelle, including such early collaborations as Whiplash (2014) and La La Land (2016). He took home Oscars for score and song ("City of Stars") for La La Land. Also a scriptwriter, he contributed to such series as The Simpsons and Curb Your Enthusiasm during the 2010s. His fifth feature-length collaboration with Hurwitz, the Hollywood epic Babylon, saw release in 2022. Raised in California, Hurwitz came from an artistic family. His sister played the violin and both his parents worked in the arts -- his mother was a ballerina and his father a writer. He began playing the piano at the age of six. By the time he was ten, he was composing his own music. In the eighth grade, he and his family moved to Fox Point, Wisconsin, where he attended Nicolet High School. While there, the budding composer also studied at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee with pianist Stefanie Jacob. After graduating in 2003, he continued his education at Harvard University. While his early years were primarily spent studying classical music -- he had an appreciation for John Williams' scores -- when he was a teenager, his Uncle Ron introduced him to jazz by giving him an Oscar Peterson record. This early taste would be the foundation of his impending friendship and collaborations with Damien Chazelle, whom he met at Harvard. The two became fast friends, playing together around Boston in the Brit-pop-inspired band Chester French (with Chazelle on drums and Hurwitz on electric piano), and later they became roommates. Their friendship and shared passion for music led to a number of collaborations. The first was Chazelle's debut feature, the jazz musical Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, for which Hurwitz composed the music. Alongside his burgeoning career as a composer, he was also creating a sideline in writing for shows like The Simpsons and The League. In 2014, the film Whiplash was released. The movie, again directed by Chazelle, was about an ambitious jazz student, and Hurwitz's score earned him a Grammy Nomination for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media. The duo's next collaboration was the romantic musical comedy-drama La La Land. Released in late 2016, it was the pair's biggest hit to date and garnered a host of awards, including Academy Awards for Hurwitz's score and Best Original Song for "City of Stars" (the latter with lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul). He produced and wrote episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm in 2017, an endeavor that resulted in an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series. In 2018, he composed the score for Chazelle's film First Man, a biopic about astronaut Neil Armstrong. Next up for Hurwitz and Chazelle was the jazz-era epic Babylon, about the rise and fall of silent-movie actors with the coming of sound film. ~ Bekki Bemrose & Marcy Donelson, Rovi