Mario Grigorov is a Bulgarian composer for film and television and a concert pianist. He performs on the piano and improvises in the styles of jazz, classical and world music.
Mario Grigorov's father was a concert trumpeter, and his mother was a concert pianist.[1] In 1968, the Sofia Conservatorium suspended its age requirement of seven years of age to allow a 5-year-old Grigorov to begin his classical studies.[2] In 1969, Mario’s father took the opportunity to play in the Shah’s handpicked orchestra, and the family relocated for 6 years. Mario’s tutelage in classical piano continued, and he was exposed to the sounds of the new culture he found himself surrounded by.
In 1976, again for Mr. Grigorov’s symphony career, the family relocated to East Germany. While finishing out the 1970s with a classical regimen, Grigorov and his family moved to Vienna, where Mario studied under renowned 20th-century composer Thomas Christian David at the Vienna Conservatorium. In the early 1980s, Mario moved to Sydney, Australia, where he took electronic music and Jazz studies classes with Don Burrows. He worked with many Australian rock groups. He has lived in Iran, Austria, Australia, Bulgaria, Germany, and the USA, and now resides between Berlin and London.[2]
Career
Personal Music
Grigorov began composing for television, commercials, and film in Sydney, Australia. In 1992, Miles Goodman, a film composer, helped Mario relocate to the United States.[3] Three days after Grigorov's move to Los Angeles, an A&R executive from Warner Brothers Records, Bob James, heard him improvising in a music store and signed him to his first major-label recording contract.[4] Grigorov then recorded his debut album, Rhymes with Orange.[5] Grigorov toured the album in Europe and North America, supporting musicians such as Wynton Marsalis,[6] Joshua Redman,[6] Charlie Haden, and Béla Fleck.[7][8]
Astor Place Records released his second album, Aria, a collaboration with Paul Schwartz, on 14 October 1997. Aria was a darker crossover with funk along with operatic themes from Carmen, The Magic Flute, Madame Butterfly and Dido and Aeneas. The album reached No. 4 on Billboard’s Top Classical Crossover chart.
Music for the Screen
In 2000, Grigorov began composing music for screen in the United States. He is most recognized for his musical scores on films by director Lee Daniels. They worked together on Shadowboxer (2005), Tennessee (2008), Precious (2009) and The Paperboy (2012).[9] In 2005, he opened his own commercial music company, Siblings Music, Inc.. Siblings existed from 2005 - 2010, creating original music for the moving picture. In 2011, he wrote the score for Patang by Indian director Prashant Bhargava which premiered at that year's Berlin International Film Festival.[10]
In 2014 Mario met with director David Yates, and they worked together on Yates' film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.[11][12] Mario Grigorov composed and co-wrote an original song, "Blind Pig", with J. K. Rowling, which was performed by Emmi.[13][14]
Music for Television
As a television film composer, he wrote the musical score for Lifetime’s 2014 made-for-television films, Flowers in the Attic and Petals on the Wind. He continued to work with Lifetime on several other television movies, including Harry and Meghan: A Royal Romance.[15]
Mario also has provided the music for several documentaries, including Third Wave: A Volunteer Story, presented by Sean Penn, the Anna Halprin biographical film Breath Made Visible by filmmaker Ruedi Gerber, and the war documentary Taxi to the Dark Side by Alex Gibney, which won a 2008 Academy Award for Best Documentary.[16][17]
Art Work
As well as being a composer and performer, Mario Grigorov is also an artist and creates two-handed symmetrical drawings.[2] He combined his drawing style with his piano playing to develop an experimental type of keyboard play known as Mirror Tones.[8]
Awards and recognition
In 2013, he won 'Best Music Feature' at the Massachusetts Independent Film Festival for his work on Susan Seidelman's Musical Chairs.[18]
