Benjamin Wynn, (Benjamin Matfield Wynn, born 1979) known also as Deru, is an American composer, sound designer and music producer mostly known for creating the sound design for the TV series '' Avatar: The Last Airbender''. He has collaborated with composers such as

Joby Talbot Joby Talbot (born 25 August 1971) is a British composer. He has written for a wide variety of purposes, with a broad range of styles, including instrumental and vocal concert music, film and television scores, pop arrangements and works for dan ...

Jeremy Zuckerman Jeremy Zuckerman (born July 31, 1975) is an American composer of concert music, film and television music, music for modern dance, and experimental music. He is best known as the composer for the animated series ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' a ...

and The Echo Society. He also produces electronic music under the name "Deru". He is the grandson of neurosurgeon

Joseph Ransohoff Dr. Joseph Ransohoff, II (July 1, 1915 – January 30, 2001) was a member of the Ransohoff, Ransohoff family and a pioneer in the field of neurosurgery. In addition to training numerous neurosurgeons, his "ingenuity in adapting advanced technologi ...

Background

Wynn studied electronic music at the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a Private university, private art school in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for ...

, where he focused on synthesis, signal processing, acoustics, music theory and composition, and earned a bachelor's degree in music technology.

Collaboration

In 2007, Wynn (as Deru) collaborated with British composer

on the score to

Wayne McGregor Sir Wayne McGregor, CBE (born 12 March 1970) is a British choreographer and director who has won multiple awards. He is the Artistic Director of Studio Wayne McGregor and Resident Choreographer of The Royal Ballet. McGregor was appointed Comma ...

's ballet, "Genus", based on

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

's book, ''

On the Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life'')The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by M ...

'', commissioned by the

Paris Opera Ballet The Paris Opera Ballet () is a French ballet company that is an integral part of the Paris Opera. It is the oldest national ballet company, and many European and international ballet companies can trace their origins to it. It is still regarded a ...

. The ballet premiered at the

Palais Garnier The (, Garnier Palace), also known as (, Garnier Opera), is a historic 1,979-seatBeauvert 1996, p. 102. opera house at the Place de l'Opéra in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was built for the Paris Opera from 1861 to 1875 at the ...

in October 2007 and was commissioned for a second round of performances in November 2009. The eight-part score combines electronics with a 10-part choir and string instruments. The score is available on Ant-Zen and Dear Oh Dear Records and was featured in the 2009 documentary, " La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet". Genus had its North American premiere by the

National Ballet of Canada The National Ballet of Canada is a Canadian ballet company that was founded in 1951 in Toronto, Ontario, with Celia Franca, the first artistic director. A company of 70 dancers with its own orchestra, the National Ballet has been led since 2022 ...

at the

Four Seasons Centre The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts is a 2,071-seat theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located at the southeast corner of University Avenue and Queen Street West, across from Osgoode Hall. The land on which it is located was a gift ...

in March 2017 in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, Canada.

The Track Team

Wynn is co-owner of a music and sound design company in Los Angeles called The Track Team. He was the force behind the sound design for all three seasons of

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (nicknamed Nick) is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first ca ...

's hit television show, '' Avatar: The Last Airbender'', which won a

Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Foster Peabody, George Peabody, honor what are described as the most powerful, enlightening, and in ...

in 2008. Wynn was nominated for a Motion Picture Sound Editor's Golden Reel award in 2009 for his sound design work on '' Avatar: The Last Airbender''. He started The Track Team with co-founder

in 2004. Together they have created music for the Nickelodeon TV series, '' Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness'', the score for the feature films ''

Just Peck ''Just Peck '' is a 2009 American comedy film directed by Michael A. Nickles and written by Marc Arneson. Plot A skinny high school sophomore dreams up a science project that will make him a living legend, and win him the heart of a pretty senior ...

'' and '' A Leading Man'' and music and sound design for

DC Comics DC Comics (originally DC Comics, Inc., and also known simply as DC) is an American comic book publisher owned by DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC is an initialism for "Detective Comics", an American comic book seri ...

shorts. Wynn also worked on the sound design for the sequel to '' Avatar: The Last Airbender'', ''

The Legend of Korra ''The Legend of Korra'' (abbreviated as ''TLOK'' and also known as ''Avatar: The Legend of Korra'' or more rarely simply as ''Korra'') is an American animated Fantasy television, fantasy action drama television series created by Michael Dante ...

''. Ben and Jeremy won a 2012

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...

for music editing for '' Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness''. In 2013, they were nominated for another

for music editing for '' Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness''. They received their third

nomination in 2014; and in 2015, they won their second

for music editing for '' Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness''. In 2017, Wynn and Zuckerman were nominated for their fifth

nomination, for music editing for '' Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness''. In 2017, it was announced on The Track Team's Facebook page that Wynn and Zuckerman had decided to dissolve their company to pursue their own creative endeavors.

The Echo Society

Wynn is a founding member and Creative Director of The Echo Society, a Los Angeles-based composer collective and non-profit organization that premieres new orchestral works in singular, one-night only events throughout Los Angeles. The Echo Society's shows bring orchestral and electronic music to new audiences through uniquely immersive experiences. The collective consists of composers

Joseph Trapanese Joseph Trapanese (born 7 August 1984) is an American composer, arranger, and producer. He works in the production of music for films, television, records, theater, concerts, and interactive media. Early life and education Raised in Jersey City ...

Rob Simonsen Rob Simonsen (born March 11, 1978) is an American composer and conductor. He is best known for his scores in films such as ''500 Days of Summer'' (2009), ''The Age of Adaline'' (2015), ''Gifted'' (2017), '' The Only Living Boy in New York'' (2017 ...

Nathan Johnson (musician) Nathan Tyler Johnson (born August 4, 1976) is an American film composer, director, and producer. He is best known for his collaborations with his cousin, the director Rian Johnson in scoring the films. Early life Johnson was born in Washington, D ...

Eskmo Brendan Angelides, formerly known by his stage names Eskmo and Welder, is an American electronic music producer and composer. He has released music on the record labels Interscope, Ninja Tune, Planet Mu, and Warp Records. NPR's Bob Boilen d ...

, and Judson Crane, as well as sound engineer Satoshi Noguchi and visual artist Effixx. In 2023, The Echo Society scored

Darren Aronofsky Darren Aronofsky (born February 12, 1969) is an American Filmmaking, filmmaker. His films are noted for their surreal, dramatic, and often disturbing elements, frequently in the form of psychological realism. His accolades include a Golden Lion ...

Postcard from Earth ''Postcard from Earth'' is a 2023 film directed by Darren Aronofsky, starring Brandon Santana and Zaya Ribeiro. Created specifically to be screened at Sphere in the Las Vegas Valley on the venue's 160,000 square-foot video screen, the film was s ...

for the

Sphere A sphere (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ) is a surface (mathematics), surface analogous to the circle, a curve. In solid geometry, a sphere is the Locus (mathematics), set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three ...

in Las Vegas. Wynn was a composer and score producer for the film. The score was orchestrated by Robert Ames and performed by the

London Contemporary Orchestra The London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO), founded in 2008 by Hugh Brunt and Robert Ames, is an ensemble of young musicians whose stated aim is "to explore and promote new music to an increasingly wide audience". LCO staged its inaugural season ...

, an 85-piece orchestra and 40-piece choir. It was recorded by Francesco Donadello at Studio 1 at the world-famous

Abbey Road Studios Abbey Road Studios (formerly EMI Recording Studios) is a music recording studio at 3 Abbey Road, London, Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of ...

. The movie premiered at the

in Las Vegas on October 6, 2023.

Deru

Wynn is also an electronic music producer under the name "Deru". He is signed to the label Friends of Friends and has released three albums on

Mush Records Mush Records is an American independent record label. It was founded by Robert Curcio and Cindy Roché in 1997. History Originally known as Dirty Loop Music, Mush Records started out as a recording studio in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the label form ...

Merck Records Merck Records (2000–2007) was a record label based in Miami and run by Gabe Koch. It released electronic music. Background Their releases cover a wide range of styles, from cut up vocal hip hop by their most prominent artist Machinedrum, to c ...

, and Neo Ouija and many remixes and tracks for compilations for labels like Hometapes,

Ghostly International Ghostly International is an American independent record label founded in 1999 by Samuel Valenti IV and currently headquartered in Brooklyn, New York City with team in Los Angeles, and London. Artists include Matthew Dear, Dabrye (a.k.a. Tadd Mu ...

, Hymen Records, 1320 Records, Unseen, and Mille Plateaux. His album, ''1979'', was released on June 17, 2014, as a limited-edition sculptural object, featuring nine tracks by Wynn and accompanied by nine short films by video artist Anthony Ciannamea, that are housed in a custom handheld video projector. He released another album, ''Torn In Two'', on October 19, 2018. In 2010, Deru and fellow electronic music producer

Free the Robots Free the Robots (born Christopher Mark Alfaro) is an underground hip hop producer from Los Angeles, California. Style Free the Robots pulls together jazz, dubstep, psychedelic music, electronic music and hip hop. History Free the Robots started ...

joined the electronic music group

The Glitch Mob The Glitch Mob is an American electronic music duo from Los Angeles, California. It consists of edIT (Edward Ma) and Ooah (Josh Mayer). Boreta (Justin Boreta) was a member of the group from its formation until 2023. Chris Martins of ''LA Weekly' ...

on their nationwide "Drink the Sea" tour. Deru scored the music and curated the soundtrack for the feature-length film, ''Outliers, Vol. I: Iceland''. The score is based on his field recordings from a trip to

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

in October 2011. The film premiered in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

in July 2012. He also composed the music for a digital arts installation by

Julie Weitz Julie Weitz (born 1979) is an American visual artist from Los Angeles. Background Born in 1979 in Chicago, Illinois, Weitz was trained as a painter and taught painting at the University of South Florida for eight years. She began to experime ...

that was entitled ''Touch Museum'' and inspired by the phenomenon known as

Autonomous sensory meridian response An autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR)Marsden, Rhodri (20 July 2012), ''The Independent''. is a tingling sensation that usually begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper Vertebral column, spine. A pleasant form ...

. In 2018, Deru scored the music for the American science fiction web television show,

Impulse (TV series) ''Impulse'' is an American science fiction drama television series based on the 2013 Steven Gould novel ''Impulse''. The novel was one of a series following Gould's novel '' Jumper''. The series is a stand-alone spin-off to the 2008 film adapta ...

The series is executive produced by

Lauren LeFranc Lauren LeFranc is an American television writer, producer and showrunner known for her work on ''The Penguin'' (2024), a spin-off series set in the universe of Matt Reeves' film '' The Batman'' (2022). Career In 2014, LeFranc worked on '' A ...

, Doug Liman, David Bartis, and Gene Klein. In 2019, Deru won a Webby award for his score for the Marvel podcast, “Wolverine: The Long Night”.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wynn, Benjamin 1979 births Living people American male composers 21st-century American composers Record producers from Illinois 21st-century American male musicians