- Born
- Birth nameMichael Alan Levine
- Michael A. Levine was awarded eight ASCAP awards for his work on the Jerry Bruckheimer/CBS dramas Cold Case and Close to Home. He scored the hit series Siren on Freeform and wrote its memorable "Siren Song" as well as writing and producing legendary vocalist Roberta Flack's most recent recording, "Running", for the feature film 3100: Run and Become. He scored the Lego DC Supergirls film, Brain Drain, the not-yet-released George Lucas-produced Star Wars Detours animated Star Wars parody, and the award-winning documentary, Landfill Harmonic, for which he wrote its Oscar-shortlisted song, "Cateura - Vamos a Soñar." His theme song (Go Tell Aunt Rhody/Everybody's Dead) for Resident Evil VII Biohazard VR - the first VR game in the RE series - became a viral hit as did Lorde's version of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" which he produced along with chart-topping records for Nat and Alex Wolff. Michael also composed the theme for Scrat, the sabertooth squirrel featured in the Ice Age shorts.
Levine provided additional music and violin on a number of Hans Zimmer scores, including Dunkirk, The Simpsons Movie, Batman: The Dark Knight, Megamind, and Rango. Michael's choir arrangement of "Spider Pig" was conducted by Hans Zimmer at the Hollywood Bowl in 2015. Levine's concert music includes "Anthem", performed by piano virtuoso Lang Lang in 2014 in Beijing. Double Crossings, an album featuring duets with percussionist great Evelyn Glennie on mallets and Michael on electric violin was released in May 2018. Glennie and Levine performed music from it live at the Wembley Auditorium in London in 2021. He also scored the music for The Big Apple Circus at Lincoln Center for both its 2021 and 2022 seasons.
Michael began his career in advertising where he composed the classic Kit Kat candy bar "Gimme a Break" jingle.
Levine was a Governor of the Television Academy (Emmys) Music peer group for two consecutive terms from 2013-2017. During his tenure, Michael created the enormously successful Score! and Words & Music concerts, spearheaded the admission of Music Supervisors to the Academy, led the effort to secure an Emmy award for them, and dramatically increased the diversity of both the Music Executive committee as well as the general music peer group membership.- IMDb mini biography by: mlmusic
- Composed the Kit Kat "Gimme a Break" jingle. A University of Cincinnati study of "earworms" - a pathological condition in which tunes get stuck in people's heads - concluded that the worst offenders included "We Will Rock You", "YMCA", and the Kit Kat "Gimme a Break" jingle.
- The signature instrument in Michaels' score for Close to Home is the tenor violin - an octave lower than a standard violin - which he plays himself.
- Can be seen briefly on screen as a fiddle playing pirate in Pirates des Caraïbes : Le Secret du coffre maudit (2006).
- Michael, alongside Lucas Cantor, produced Lorde's version of the Tears for Fears classic "Everybody Wants to Rule The World" from The Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack.
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