John Paesano

John Paesano, an American composer specializing in film and television, first gained wide attention through his contributions to Marvel projects including the series Daredevil and The Defenders along with the full Maze Runner film series. At ten years old he watched Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun in his hometown of Birmingham, Michigan; the experience of hearing John Williams’ music prompted him to begin piano lessons. He later pursued formal training at the Conservatoire de Paris before completing a film-scoring degree at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Moving to Los Angeles at twenty-one, he initially built his Hollywood profile by supplying additional music to features such as the 2002 release Star Trek: Nemesis and Timeline the following year. During the same period he received primary composing assignments on modest productions, among them the 2002 thriller Unstable Minds and 2005’s USA the Movie.

He collaborated with Don Spangler and Andy Sturmer on the 2007 Cartoon Network feature Ben 10: Secret of the Omnitrix, then handled the entire score alone for 2008’s Another Cinderella Story, which starred Selena Gomez. In 2010 he composed the animated direct-to-video release Superman/Batman: Apocalypse and subsequently served as principal composer for the 2012 series Dragons: Riders of Berk. His first major theatrical assignment arrived with the 2014 science-fiction thriller The Maze Runner, after which he scored its 2015 sequel, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials. That same year he returned to the Dragons franchise for the new installment Race to the Edge while also beginning work on the Marvel superhero series Daredevil. In 2016 he added the Fox science-fiction program Second Chance to his slate. The year 2017 brought both the Netflix series Marvel’s The Defenders and his first video-game project, Mass Effect: Andromeda. Sci-fi action scores continued in 2018 with Pacific Rim Uprising and Maze Runner: The Death Cure.