Alumni Gazette

On a Composing ‘JAG’

Bramson

An orchestral score a week? As composer for the CBS military drama JAG, Steve Bramson ’83E (MM) comes up with an original score for each episode.

Since joining the show midway through its first season, he has written 191 original scores during the show’s nine-year run—one of the longest composing stints in TV history.

Bramson is responsible for nearly every facet of the show’s music, from the first “spotting session” where he, the producer, and the director meet to decide which parts need music, to conducting the orchestra in the recording session.

“It’s a sprint every week,” Bramson says. “I only have five or six days to conceive the score and record it with the orchestra.”

Bramson credits the two Eastman summer sessions he attended, “Arrangers’ Holiday” with jazz professor Rayburn Wright, for changing his career path from economics to music, and composer Lawrence Rosenthal ’47E, ’51E (MM) for guiding him into composing for Hollywood.

“When I was a graduate student, I followed Rosenthal everywhere,” Bramson says. “Under the Eastman grant program for work-study projects, I worked with him on the 1984 miniseries George Washington. He was a great mentor.”

Since then, Bramson has composed music for films that include Jumanji, Starship Troopers, and the upcoming In Enemy Hands, and television shows Tiny Toon Adventures and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles as well as JAG which, he says, will likely end after this season, its 10th.

“I’ve always wanted to do feature films. I’ve also been writing a musical, and I’ve been asked to do concert pieces but I’ve never had time to do them. I’ll miss JAG, but it’s time to move on.”