Stanley James LePard (August 10, 1956 – February 11, 2021) was an American composer, orchestrator and sound designer. He is best known for his work on the ''

Halo HALO, halo, halos or haloes may refer to: Most common meanings * Halo (optical phenomenon) * Halo (religious iconography), a ring of light around the image of a head * ''Halo'' (franchise), a sci-fi video game series (2001–2021) Arts and en ...

'' and ''

Destiny Destiny, sometimes also called fate (), is a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual. Fate Although often used interchangeably, the words ''fate'' and ''destiny'' ...

'' game series, as well as ''

Guild Wars 2 ''Guild Wars 2'' is a free-to-play, massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by ArenaNet and published by NCSoft. Set in the fantasy world of Tyria, the core game follows the re-emergence of Destiny's Edge, a disbanded guild dedi ...

''. In addition to games, he has also composed for numerous

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

software products, including

Encarta Microsoft ''Encarta'' is a discontinued Digital data, digital multimedia encyclopedia and search engine published by Microsoft from 1993 to 2009. Originally sold on CD-ROM or DVD, it was also available online via annual subscription, although ...

and

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

Early life

LePard was born in Coeur d'Alene,

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

. He received a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

in Music Composition at

Eastern Washington University Eastern Washington University (EWU) is a public university in Cheney, Washington, United States. It shares its satellite campus in Spokane, Washington with Washington State University. Founded in 1882, the university is academically divided in ...

, as well as a master's degree in Music Education at

University of North Texas The University of North Texas (UNT) is a public university, public research university located in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. Its main campus is in Denton, Texas, Denton, with a satellite campus in Frisco, Texas, Frisco. It serves as the ...

Career

Starting from 1980, LePard composed for TV shows and films. During the late 1980s, LePard was part of the new wave band Secret Cinema. He was also part of industrial band Steel Porn Rhino along with Jerry Schroeder, a fellow composer and sound designer whom he continued to collaborate with on later projects. Around 1994, LePard started doing work on various

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...

software products under the

Microsoft Home Microsoft Home is a discontinued line of software applications and personal hardware products published by Microsoft. The Microsoft Home brand was first announced by Bill Gates in a presentation on October 4, 1993. These applications were designed ...

line, including

and 3D Movie Maker. This led to him composing the music for '' Hover!'', a game included with

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...

; it was the first game that he composed for. He also composed the shutdown sound for

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the second operating system in the 9x line, as the successor to Windows 95. It was Software ...

, as well as the installation music for

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated as IE or MSIE) is a deprecation, retired series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were u ...

Starter Kit 3.0, which gained recognition from its later inclusion in

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...

out-of-box experience An out-of-box experience (OOBE ( )) is the experience an end-user has when taking a product after unboxing, or for digital distribution, runs the Installation (computer programs)#Installer, installer, and is preparing to first use it, as opposed t ...

. LePard's first game score to utilize a live orchestra was ''

Crimson Skies ''Crimson Skies'' is a tabletop and a video game media franchise created by Jordan Weisman and Dave McCoy, first released as a board game in 1998 and then as a PC game in 2000. The series' intellectual property is currently owned by Microsoft C ...

'', released in 2000. He aimed to write music inspired by 1930s film and concert music, without being derivative of particular composers or styles. Starting with '' MechWarrior 4: Vengeance'', he also provided orchestrations for scores written by other composers, such as Duane Decker and Stephen Rippy. Starting from 2012, he has contributed to the music of various events and expansions of ''

''. His first contribution was a track for the game's first Halloween event ''Shadow of the Mad King 2012'', based on a short piano sketch by Maclaine Diemer that he transformed into a full composition. He also provided orchestration work, which Diemer has praised for relieving his anxiety over wasting the studio's budget, making sure his compositions were not "unplayable nonsense", as well as adding extra harmonic and melodic sophistication to his compositions. He also composed and orchestrated music for its expansions '' Heart of Thorns'' and '' Path of Fire''.

Death

LePard died on February 11, 2021, aged 64, following a

intracerebral hemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as hemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into Intraparenchymal hemorrhage, the tissues of the brain (i.e. the parenchyma), into its Intraventricular hemorrhage, ventricles, or into both. An ICH is ...

. To commemorate him, an NPC named Van Leopard and a memorial statue for him was added to ''Guild Wars 2'' on May 11, 2021.

Notable works

Games

Software

References

External links

*
Stan LePard Music

Discography at VGMdb
{{DEFAULTSORT:LePard, Stan 1956 births 2021 deaths 20th-century American composers 20th-century American male musicians 21st-century American composers 21st-century American male musicians American sound designers American video game composers Deaths from intracranial haemorrhage