Mark Snow, ‘X-Files,’ ‘Ghost Whisperer,’ ‘Blue Bloods,’ 'Millennium' Composer Dies at 78

quote:

---

Mark Snow, the veteran television composer who turned “The X-Files” theme into an unlikely chart hit in the 1990s, died Friday at his home in Connecticut. He was 78.

A 15-time Emmy nominee, he not only scored more than 200 episodes of Chris Carter’s spooky Fox series (and both its big-screen incarnations, all starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson), he also provided the music for other series including “Hart to Hart,” “T.J. Hooker,” “Smallville,” “The Ghost Whisperer” and “Blue Bloods.”

Six of his 15 Emmy nominations were for “The X-Files,” but five others were for such high rated TV movies and miniseries, including “Something About Amelia,” “An American Story,” “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All,” “Children of the Dust” and “Helter Skelter.”

The Juilliard-trained composer started out, like most TV composers in the 1970s, writing for full orchestra, but Snow was among the first to transition to the all-electronic milieu in the late 1980s, working alone in his home studio. All of the “X-Files” TV music (sometimes as much as 40 minutes per weekly episode) was created on his synthesizers, samplers and other music-making machines.

---