Jeff Rona: One Of The Best Composers In Hollywood
Most of you haven’t heard of Jeff Rona, and it’s not so surprising. he has been ‘hiding’ in the shadows of the more known composers for a while now. As part of Hans Zimmer’s company Media Ventures, he has learned from the best, but unlike many others in Hans Zimmer’s school of film scoring, this guy is special, and follow his own style. I would describe him as the male Lisa Gerrard, a mix between Harry Gregson-Williams, Mark Isham and John Murphy.
He has been composing for 15 years, doingall sorts of things, mostly TV series (Chicago Hope, Profiler) and documentaries like Sharkwater. I have 3 soundtracks with Jeff Rona and believe me when I say I will get more. Please listen to one of his soundtracks called Slow Burn, a movie starring Ray Liotta: Listen here!
Earthsea by Jeff Rona
This is the first album I heard of Jeff Rona. It’s a Scifi Channel mini series from 2004 which wasn’t a great success. I kind of enjoyed Earthsea though. When I got hold of the music recently I was overwhelmed. Jeff Rona’s imagination is a beautiful thing as he uses ethnic voices to great effect and the strings go from light to powerful perfection. He doesn’t stop there and present us with oboe and the flute in a way that really captures the imagination. Even if you haven’t seen Earthsea, there is enough for everyone to be full and happy after hearing this.
Traffic The Miniseries by Jeff Rona
Traffic the miniseries might not be as good as the movie, but the music is in fact better than the movie. I’m not going to do any comparisons here, but this is a beautiful score by Jeff Rona. It’s an ambient score, not unlike Phone Booth by Harry Gregson-Williams or Crash by Mark Isham. When you listen to it, you think about busy streets and all sorts of things go through your mind as he pushes the deep rhythms further inside you. Yes it’s easy to drift away into dreamland with this score, but not because it’s boring, far from it, because it is haunting and exciting and thought provoking. Another top score by Jeff Rona who is quickly gaining popularity here at Soundtrack Geek.
A Thousand Roads by Lisa Gerrard and Jeff Rona
Here Jeff Rona partner with Lisa Gerrard and when these two come together, gold is made. Jeff Rona’s haunting instruments and Lisa Gerrard’s powerful voice makes this journey into Indian culture unforgettable. This soundtrack is special, it’s different from what you have heard before. It experiments with Indian voices, combined with ambient sounds and classical instruments. They can so easily fail, but they succeed immensely. I love this soundtrack so much, and I will buy all of Jeff Rona’s work. Amazing stuff.
Buy Jeff Rona’s scores here: BUY
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Comments
I LOVE your blog. 
I must contribute my favorite movie tracks.
Krull - Ride of the Firemares
Plague Dogs - Time and Tide (technically a pop song but it’s so sad)
and for me the mother of emotion-welling tracks…
Glory - Charging Fort Wagner
I’ll be checking back often.
Fletch: Well, I actually want to upload podcasts of the albums I review, but due to bad internet connection at home, it was not possible this time. I did it on the Resident Evil: Extinction soundtrack. Check it out and tell me what you think. As for linking to Amazon, I’m not sure they would like it if I incorporated that in my blog. I will certainly find a solution for that, and I will probably update this blog when I have some sound samples.
DCMovieGirl: Thanks! I love your blog too :). Glory is an amazing soundtrack. I haven’t heard Krull or Plague Dogs, but now I have to. Thanks for dropping by!
[…] By popular request I have made a Jeff Rona compilation of the soundtracks to Earthsea, Traffic the Miniseries and A Thousand Roads reviewed by me here. […]
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Liking the “Geek Score” - very nice.
I have one suggestion/comment for you: I don’t know if it’s even possible, but Amazon usually has samples for CDs that are for sale. Since most people (even big movie fans like myself) aren’t too familiar with the work of a given composer or score, what about linking to and/or placing in your posts a sample to a given work? As it is, I’m terribly unfamiliar with anyone outside of the big name composers. Just a thought.