Joe Kraemer is an American composer and conductor of film and television scores. He is known for his collaborations with director Christopher McQuarrie, having composed the scores to The Way of the Gun, Jack Reacher, and .
Biography
Kraemer was born in Buffalo, New York and raised in Albany, New York. His father and uncle were both musicians, and Kraemer began taking piano lessons at an early age. In high school he befriended an older boy named Scott Storm, who became a professional filmmaker. Kraemer's first film score was for a Super-8 film written and directed by Storm, called Chiming Hour. Kraemer, who also acted in the film, was 15 at the time. Storm later introduced Kraemer to filmmakers Bryan Singer and Christopher McQuarrie. While attending Berklee School of Music in Boston, Kraemer decided he wanted to be a film composer. Through contacts such as Singer and McQuarrie, he was able to obtain work first as a sound editor, before eventually crossing over into television and film composing. Kraemer's first feature film score was the 2000 filmThe Way of the Gun, a modern-day western written and directed by Oscar-winner Christopher McQuarrie. The film starred Benicio del Toro, Ryan Phillippe, and James Caan. Though the film performed poorly at the box office, it became something of a cult classic, and some industry insiders began to expect great things from Kraemer. Over the next few years, Kraemer scored music for the hit Cinemax series, Femme Fatales, the docudrama Emerald Cowboy ; in 2006 he teamed up with his old classmate Scott Storm for the low-budget crime thrillerTen 'til Noon, which won awards at the film festival level; and in 2008 he scored the direct-to-video thriller ', written by J. J. Abrams. In 2012, Kraemer got his chance, composing the score for the Tom Cruiseaction thrillerJack Reacher. Directed by McQuarrie, the film grossed more than $200 million worldwide, making it by far the most high-profile project in Kraemer's portfolio. His score was nominated in the Best Original Score - Feature Film category at the 2012 Hollywood Music In Media Awards. His credits also include the 2014 filmDawn Patrol, starring Scott Eastwood. On the strength of this success, Kraemer was hired to score the fifth film in Cruise's mega-successful Mission: Impossible franchise, '. In 2016, Kraemer was commissioned by the Dallas Chamber Symphony to write new music for F.W. Murnau's . In 2017, Kraemer composed the score for the teen anthology seriesCreeped Out on CBBC.
