Composer Aaron Zigman has earned widespread recognition for more than seventy film scores, yet his output in classical and pop realms has reached equally broad audiences, often without listeners realizing the connection. He has penned material for leading figures across pop history, at times collaborating directly with the performers themselves, while maintaining an extensive career as a studio musician and arranger. On the classical front, his oratorio Émigré received a recording release in 2024.
Zigman entered the world on January 6, 1963, in San Diego, where his mother, a pianist and harpist, provided his earliest instruction. He pursued studies in both classical music and jazz throughout the region, later completing his secondary education at Point Loma High School before enrolling at the University of California, Los Angeles. Displaying prodigious talent from a young age, he made his first recorded appearance in 1974 as keyboardist on Latin American artist Bertín Osborne’s album Acuerdate de mi. During his late teenage years, he contributed further studio work for pop singer Boz Scaggs. While in his third year at UCLA, the Almo/Irving publishing firm extended him a contract, prompting a full commitment to professional music. He began private study with composer and arranger George Bassman—his cousin, who had prepared orchestrations for the film The Wizard of Oz. Still an undergraduate, Zigman created several songs for the pop group The Jets, assisted producer Clive Davis, and handled production duties for Aretha Franklin and Natalie Cole, among others. Throughout the 1980s he continued supplying material to major artists of the era, among them Tina Turner, The Pointer Sisters, Huey Lewis, and Patti LaBelle.
During the 1990s Zigman expanded into film scoring, contributing keyboards and production to major releases such as Mulan, What’s Love Got to Do with It?, and Pocahontas. By the early 2000s he undertook his first complete film score for the 2002 picture John Q., which earned him a BMI Film Music Award. His 2004 score for The Notebook garnered multiple honors, after which he composed for additional large-scale projects including The Proposal, Sex & the City, and Escape from Planet Earth. Concurrently he cultivated classical composition, producing chamber pieces such as a viola sonata and the tone poem Rabin: An Orchestral Work in Five Movements, which has received several performances in the Los Angeles area, along with works of Jewish religious music. In 2016 pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet appeared on Zigman’s score for the film Wakefield; the two subsequently collaborated on the project “Tango Manos.” Zigman’s oratorio Émigré, drawn from the experiences of Jewish refugees from Nazism in Shanghai, China, received its premiere from the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra under conductor Long Yu and appeared on an album issued by the Deutsche Grammophon label in 2024.
