For more than a decade, Kurt Bestor’s film scores, television themes, compositions and carols have providedan indelible soundtrack for American life. Indeed, much of Bestor’s own life has been dedicated to creating musical parallels to visual images.

Born in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Bestor benefited from his family’s musical inclinations. His grandfather played trumpet in Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra and a great uncle played trombone in Jack Benny’s band. When he took up piano as a child, Bestor was encouraged by his mother to improvise with his imagination. “I’d get restless practicing and my mom would sit down at the piano with me and say ‘Play something that sounds like a sunrise.’” Thus was born his fascination with the relationship between music and visual imagery. As Bestor took up trumpet in his early teens, he set his sights on composing for film. “I knew that’s what I wanted to do when I saw “Jaws” during high school. I have made a goal to score films ever since.”

While enrolled in college, Bestor began writing music for student films, gradually moving onto documentaries and eventually into the feature film score arena. In 1987, he was one of only six recipients of a three-month fellowship at the Sundance Film Institute’s Film Composer Lab. There, he studies with master film composers Dave Grusin, Alan Silvestri and David Raksin.