Recent from talks
Alf Clausen
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Alf Clausen
Alf Faye Heiberg Clausen (March 28, 1941 – May 29, 2025) was an American film and television composer. He is best known for his work scoring many episodes of The Simpsons, for which he was the sole composer between 1990 and 2017. Clausen scored or orchestrated music for more than 30 films and television shows, including Moonlighting, The Naked Gun, ALF and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Clausen received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music in 1996.
Clausen was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on March 28, 1941. He was raised in Jamestown, North Dakota. Clausen was interested in music from a young age. He counted composer Henry Mancini as one of his heroes; his book Sounds and Scores inspired him. He began playing the French horn in the seventh grade and also learned piano; and he sang in his high school choir. He continued playing and learned to play the bass guitar, stopping singing because the choir met at the same time as the band.
He studied mechanical engineering at North Dakota State University although, after being inspired by his pianist cousin, switched his major to music theory. While there, Clausen took a correspondence course at Boston's Berklee College of Music in jazz and big band writing. He went on to attend the University of Wisconsin–Madison to complete his master's degree, but he quit, as he disliked the place, especially what he felt was an "anti-jazz" attitude. He later attended Berklee and graduated with a diploma in arranging and composition in 1966. Clausen was the first French horn player to ever attend the college and took part in many ensembles; he is also featured on some Jazz in the Classroom albums.
After college, Clausen worked for a period as a musician. After earning his master's degree at Berklee, Clausen taught there for a year.
Clausen moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1967 in search of television work, wanting to become a full-time composer. For nine years he did some arrangement work for singers, ghostwriting and other composing jobs, such as commercial jingles, as well as working as a teacher, music copyist and a bassist. He worked as a copyist on "Come On Get Happy", the theme song to The Partridge Family. He eventually became a score writer and later the music director and conductor for Donny & Marie between 1976 and 1979. Initially, he was requested to write an emergency chart for the following day, but he was hired as a score writer and continued writing and conducting on the show, before replacing Tommy Oliver as music director. When the show moved to Utah, Clausen flew there each week from Los Angeles to record the score. He had the same role on The Mary Tyler Moore Hour in 1979. In 1981 he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement In Music Direction for Omnibus.
Clausen served as the composer for the series Moonlighting from 1985 to 1989, scoring 63 of the 65 episodes. His favorite episode to score was the episode "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice", which featured two lengthy black and white dream sequences; and he enjoyed the episode "Atomic Shakespeare", also a fantasy episode. He received an Emmy nomination for each episode in the category Outstanding Achievement In Music Composition For A Series (Dramatic Underscore) in 1986 and 1987, earning two more nominations over the next two years for the episodes "Here's Living with You, Kid" and "A Womb with a View". In 1988 and 1989 he also received nominations for the Emmy for Outstanding Achievement In Music Direction. He was also the composer on ALF from 1986 to 1990.
His other television compositions included Wizards and Warriors (1983), Fame (1984), Lime Street (1985), Christine Cromwell (1989), and My Life and Times (1991) as well as the television films Murder in Three Acts (1986), Double Agent (1987), Police Story: The Watch Commander (1988), My First Love (1988), She Knows Too Much (1989), and the feature film Number One with a Bullet (1987). He also conducted the orchestras and, for some, provided additional music for several films including The Beastmaster (1982), Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), Splash (1984), Weird Science (1985), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), Dragnet (1987), and The Naked Gun (1988).
The show provides him the opportunity to score realistic drama, overblown comedy, gritty urban jazz, Broadway-worthy show tunes, and some of the most clever and loving parodies of cheap-o television news themes, '70s action music, and feature film scores ever done. Alf delivers in spades, always bringing his trademark stylistic verve and technical precision. He has proved beyond a doubt that television scoring is not the vast wasteland it is often purported to be and that an intelligent composer can take even the most demanding shows and elevate them to new heights.
— Doug Adams of Film Score Monthly about Clausen's work on The Simpsons
Hub AI
Alf Clausen AI simulator
(@Alf Clausen_simulator)
Alf Clausen
Alf Faye Heiberg Clausen (March 28, 1941 – May 29, 2025) was an American film and television composer. He is best known for his work scoring many episodes of The Simpsons, for which he was the sole composer between 1990 and 2017. Clausen scored or orchestrated music for more than 30 films and television shows, including Moonlighting, The Naked Gun, ALF and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Clausen received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music in 1996.
Clausen was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on March 28, 1941. He was raised in Jamestown, North Dakota. Clausen was interested in music from a young age. He counted composer Henry Mancini as one of his heroes; his book Sounds and Scores inspired him. He began playing the French horn in the seventh grade and also learned piano; and he sang in his high school choir. He continued playing and learned to play the bass guitar, stopping singing because the choir met at the same time as the band.
He studied mechanical engineering at North Dakota State University although, after being inspired by his pianist cousin, switched his major to music theory. While there, Clausen took a correspondence course at Boston's Berklee College of Music in jazz and big band writing. He went on to attend the University of Wisconsin–Madison to complete his master's degree, but he quit, as he disliked the place, especially what he felt was an "anti-jazz" attitude. He later attended Berklee and graduated with a diploma in arranging and composition in 1966. Clausen was the first French horn player to ever attend the college and took part in many ensembles; he is also featured on some Jazz in the Classroom albums.
After college, Clausen worked for a period as a musician. After earning his master's degree at Berklee, Clausen taught there for a year.
Clausen moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1967 in search of television work, wanting to become a full-time composer. For nine years he did some arrangement work for singers, ghostwriting and other composing jobs, such as commercial jingles, as well as working as a teacher, music copyist and a bassist. He worked as a copyist on "Come On Get Happy", the theme song to The Partridge Family. He eventually became a score writer and later the music director and conductor for Donny & Marie between 1976 and 1979. Initially, he was requested to write an emergency chart for the following day, but he was hired as a score writer and continued writing and conducting on the show, before replacing Tommy Oliver as music director. When the show moved to Utah, Clausen flew there each week from Los Angeles to record the score. He had the same role on The Mary Tyler Moore Hour in 1979. In 1981 he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement In Music Direction for Omnibus.
Clausen served as the composer for the series Moonlighting from 1985 to 1989, scoring 63 of the 65 episodes. His favorite episode to score was the episode "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice", which featured two lengthy black and white dream sequences; and he enjoyed the episode "Atomic Shakespeare", also a fantasy episode. He received an Emmy nomination for each episode in the category Outstanding Achievement In Music Composition For A Series (Dramatic Underscore) in 1986 and 1987, earning two more nominations over the next two years for the episodes "Here's Living with You, Kid" and "A Womb with a View". In 1988 and 1989 he also received nominations for the Emmy for Outstanding Achievement In Music Direction. He was also the composer on ALF from 1986 to 1990.
His other television compositions included Wizards and Warriors (1983), Fame (1984), Lime Street (1985), Christine Cromwell (1989), and My Life and Times (1991) as well as the television films Murder in Three Acts (1986), Double Agent (1987), Police Story: The Watch Commander (1988), My First Love (1988), She Knows Too Much (1989), and the feature film Number One with a Bullet (1987). He also conducted the orchestras and, for some, provided additional music for several films including The Beastmaster (1982), Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), Splash (1984), Weird Science (1985), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), Dragnet (1987), and The Naked Gun (1988).
The show provides him the opportunity to score realistic drama, overblown comedy, gritty urban jazz, Broadway-worthy show tunes, and some of the most clever and loving parodies of cheap-o television news themes, '70s action music, and feature film scores ever done. Alf delivers in spades, always bringing his trademark stylistic verve and technical precision. He has proved beyond a doubt that television scoring is not the vast wasteland it is often purported to be and that an intelligent composer can take even the most demanding shows and elevate them to new heights.
— Doug Adams of Film Score Monthly about Clausen's work on The Simpsons