Keegan DeWitt

An American multi-hyphenate with footholds in cinema and songcraft, Keegan DeWitt has scored projects for HBO, Showtime, and Fox while partnering with numerous acclaimed independent directors. His own elegant folk-pop releases weave the lush, cinematic flourishes of an orchestral soundtrack into concise song forms. The artist issued his first solo EP in 2003 and his initial film score two years later, ultimately delivering more than two dozen additional soundtracks alongside several pop projects by the close of the 2010s.

Raised in central Oregon, DeWitt cultivated an early passion for screenwriting and teamed with Aaron Katz on a string of short films. In their late teens, Katz moved to the North Carolina School of the Arts to study directing while DeWitt enrolled at SUNY Purchase and settled in New York; the pair sustained their creative partnership across the distance, with DeWitt supplying music for Katz’s features. Their joint effort Dance Party USA earned recognition from The New York Times as one of 2006’s standout films.

Alongside his acting and composing work in New York City, DeWitt began crafting compact, folk-rooted material that surfaced as the 2003 collection Songs from the Byrd Chorus. He followed three years later with the sophomore release Keegan DeWitt & the Sparrows on his own Dual Coast Company Recording imprint. Although he briefly toured as guitarist for Roman Candle, DeWitt’s solo trajectory accelerated after he joined the British label Izumi Records and unveiled the 2009 album Islands, prompting Paste Magazine to list him among its ten favorite solo artists of 2010. His extensive and varied film scores include the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award-winning This Is Martin Bonner from 2011, the Locarno Special Jury Prize-winning Listen Up Philip, the 2017 Sam Elliott-starring comedy-drama Hero, and the 2018 musical dramedy Hearts Beat Loud.