Bear McCreary

He is also a two-time winner of both the British Academy Games Award for Music and D.I.C.E. Award for Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition for his work on God of War and God of War Ragnarök, and is a four-time Grammy Award nominee.

McCreary was raised in Bellingham, Washington. He is the son of author Laura Kalpakian and professor Jay McCreary of University of Hawaii at Manoa. His brother, Brendan McCreary, is also a musician. Bear has directed and produced several music videos for Brendan's band, Young Beautiful in a Hurry. He graduated from Bellingham High School in 1997. He is a classically trained pianist and self-taught accordionist. He studied under the renowned film score composer Elmer Bernstein during which time he reconstructed and reorchestrated Bernstein's 1963 score for Kings of the Sun. Their collaboration allowed for the complete score to be available as a soundtrack album for the first time in 40 years.

In 2003, McCreary worked under primary composer Richard Gibbs on the three-hour miniseries which served as a pilot for the reimagined series of Battlestar Galactica. When the show was picked up, Gibbs opted not to devote full-time to the regular series' production, and McCreary became the sole composer. He worked on the series until it reached its conclusion in 2009, scoring over 70 episodes. To date, six Battlestar Galactica soundtrack albums have been released, and have garnered a great deal of critical acclaim and commercial success. The soundtracks for seasons two and three ranked amongst Amazon.com's Top 30 Music Sales on their first days of release. McCreary composed for the Battlestar Galactica prequel series Caprica and Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome.

McCreary provided the score for the series Human Target (based on the comic book of the same name). The pilot episode and main theme score had been recorded with a full orchestra. The series has the distinction of having one of the largest orchestras on television. The score to the finale of season one, "Christopher Chance", used the largest orchestra ever assembled for episodic television, and he took the opportunity to rerecord the main title theme with a new orchestration with this larger ensemble. In July 2010, he received his first Emmy nomination for the Human Target main title. In a post on his blog on July 25, 2010, McCreary announced the new creative leadership brought in for season two had not asked him to return for it, and he would be leaving the series.

The opening title sequence for Black Sails was composed by McCreary with a backing sea shanty-inspired theme. It accurately features an instrument of the period in the form of the hurdy-gurdy.

McCreary has composed the score for all seasons of Outlander. The main title was sung by his long-time collaborator and partner, Raya Yarbrough. In 2015, McCreary was nominated for an Emmy for the pilot Outlander episode "Sassenach" (S01E01; 2014-08-09).

During Comic-Con 2010, Bear McCreary attended panels for AMC's The Walking Dead and NBC's The Cape to announce he would be composing the score for both television series. On July 15, 2013, McCreary announced that he would compose the score for ABC's series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. On September 4, 2015, McCreary released the official Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. soundtrack publicly. McCreary served as orchestral producer for the rock opera Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem airing on Adult Swim on October 27, 2013. This is a continuation of the Metalocalypse universe following the band Dethklok. The music features a 50-piece orchestra. The soundtrack was released on October 29, 2013. McCreary also composed the score for the television series Snowpiercer which premiered on TNT May 17, 2020. Snowpiercer was also distributed online via Netflix. The score for the Masters of the Universe: Revelation series on Netflix was composed by McCreary McCreary composed the theme and music for the television series Foundation, an Apple TV+ series adapted from Isaac Asimov's novels. The Season 1 soundtrack was released on September 24, 2021. The following year, he composed the score for the Amazon Prime Video fantasy television series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. McCreary, who wrote the score over a period of 9 months, has been a fan of J. R. R. Tolkien since reading The Hobbit aged 10. He called the job "a dream come true".

McCreary made an eight-bit rendition of the Dark Void theme, which was, originally, an April fools joke. However, the theme was used for the prequel, Dark Void Zero. He composed all the songs in an eight-bit fashion by connecting the wires on an actual NES console and cartridge to create authenticity. He arranged James Rolfe's The Angry Video Game Nerd "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" parody "You're a Mean One, Mr. Nerd" for the 2010 Christmas special, with orchestra and eight-bit audio elements. McCreary also performed with his orchestra live at Sony's E3 2016 press conference throughout the show and composed the score of the 2018 video game God of War, which shifted the God of War series to Norse mythology. He also composed the music for its 2022 sequel, God of War Ragnarök—as well as its 2023 expansion, Valhalla—for which he also plays a minor character in the game, a Dwarf named Ræb (Bear spelled backwards), who plays the Hurdy Gurdy, the same instrument Bear uses throughout the score for the game. He also returned to score the 2026 side game God of War Sons of Sparta. This game returned the series to its original Greek mythology setting, so McCreary drew from Greek folk music, using instruments such as the kithara and aulos, combining them with elements of chiptunes due to the game's retro 2D style. In 2021, McCreary composed the score for Call of Duty: Vanguard.

In February 2024, McCreary announced that a concept album titled The Singularity would be released in May by Sparks & Shadows Records and Mutant. Co-written and co-produced by McCreary’s brother, Brendan McCreary, who also contributes lead vocals to eight songs, the album features performances by Rufus Wainwright, Slash, Serj Tankian, Corey Taylor, Jens Kidman, Joe Satriani, Buck Dharma, Asdru Sierra, Griogair, Kim Thayil, Scott Ian, Brendon Small, Billy Boyd, Eivør, Guthrie Govan and Bryan Beller, Mike Keneally, Ben Weinman, Steve Bartek and John Avila, Warren Fitzgerald, Esjay Jones, Sigurjón Kjartansson, Raya Yarbrough, Mega Ran, and Gene Hoglan, along with spoken-word contributions from the companion graphic novel (published by Image Comics and Black Market Narrative) by actors Lee Pace, Danai Gurira, and Ryan Hurst.

In February 2027, his musical Particle Fever will debut at La Jolla Playhouse. The book is by David Henry Hwang, with music and lyrics co-written by Zoe Sarnak and himself.

McCreary married singer and songwriter Raya Yarbrough in 2010. They have collaborated on the music of Battlestar Galactica, Outlander, Defiance, and Da Vinci's Demons, among other projects. Their daughter Sonatine, named after the musical term sonatina, was born on June 2, 2014.