Peter Golub

Director, Film Music Program

Peter Golub is the composer of numerous works for film, the concert hall, theatre and dance. His film scores include: Frozen River (directed by Courtney Hunt and nominated for 2 Academy Awards); The Laramie Project (for HBO); The Great Debaters (directed by Denzel Washington and co-composed with James Newton Howard); Wordplay (directed by Patrick Creadon); Countdown to Zero (dir by Lucy Walker); Sound of a Dream (dir by Zhang Wei); and Songs My Brothers Taught Me (dir by Chloe Zhao). Scores for Broadway include: The Country House (by Donald Marguiles, directed by Daniel Sullivan, with Blythe Danner), The Heiress (directed by Moises Kaufman, with Jessica Chastain) and Hedda Gabler (directed by Nicholas Martin, with Kate Burton). 


In his early career he was Composer-in-Residence for Charles Ludlam's legendary Ridiculous Theatrical Company in Greenwich Village, along with considerable work composing music for the theatre with Joseph Papp at the New York Shakespeare Festival (including numerous productions at the Delacorte in Central Park as well as at the Public downtown) and at La Mama, including work with Ethyl Eichelberger, Ellen Stewart, Jospeh Chaikin and others. His musical, Ampigorey, with book, lyrics and designs by Edward Gorey, was produced at the American Music Theater Festival (Philadelphia), as well as at the American Repertory Theatre (ART) in Cambridge, culminating in an off-Broadway run at the Perry Street Theatre in NY. Amphigorey was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Best Musical. 


His ballet based on Gorey's The Gilded Bat, choreography by Peter Anastos, was commissioned by Ballet West and performed at the Kennedy Center and throughout the US. Other ballets were commissioned by the Miami City Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet, and Atlanta Ballet. Recent concert music includes: Sleepwalking (a cello concerto), Ghost Songs (for voice and piano, to texts by Thomas Hardy), Six Dirty Limericks, Garden Paths (for flute, viola and Harp), Florestan & Eusebius (for saxophone quartet) and A Child of Children and Art (commissioned by pianist Anthony de Mare as part of a set of original piano pieces in tribute to Stephen Sondheim). He studied composition with Toru Takemitsu and Henry Brant.


Golub is the Director of the Sundance Film Music Program and teaches at UCLA's Herb Alpert School of Music. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.