Gabriel Mann (singer)

Gabriel Mann (January 17, 1973, born Gabriel Shabbtai Rutman) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for the songs he has written for various TV series and films. He was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas.

Biography

Mann is the youngest of four children, born to a physician who doubled as an Orthodox Jewish cantor and a pianist mother. Since he was young, he had this influence in his life, although his songs are of a different kind of music. At the age of seven, he began to study piano.

Two years later, Mrs. Kocurek became his piano teacher. She taught him how to learn songs by listening to the radio. Training his ears and hands, Mrs. Kocurek realized the gift of Mann. His classical music studies were based upon Debussy, Bartók and Crumb.

According to him, his experiences with pop music were self-guided, because his parents didn't listen to this kind of music. His first LP was Billy Joel´s Glass Houses, bought from a friend. He also listened to his sister's collection of records, which included The Cars, Rolling Stones, Eagles, Yes and Elton John. Reading and typing out the lyrics of the songs he listened to opened his eyes to the songwriting process.

He began composing songs in middle school, most of which were influenced by Elton John. At the end of his senior year, Mann signed up for the annual Alamo Heights High talent show as a way to showcase his talent. He performed Billy Joel's "Vienna."

Career

The following year, during the Gulf War crisis, Mann moved to Israel and began playing songs in public places. During this time, he interacted with other musicians, like Josh Ross.

The next year, he enrolled in University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in music composition. As a freshman, he joined Off the Beat, the campus a cappella group for which he ultimately became musical director, and then went on to join the university choir.

During his college years, he was approached by a functionary of Philadelphia-based Ruff House Records who gave him the chance to professionally record four songs.

After college, he moved to Los Angeles where he enrolled in USC's Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program. The course of the study was headed by Buddy Baker, a prominent composer for TV and movies. To get into the program, Mann wrote arrangements for orchestra, big band and pop and was accepted.

He launched his own band while in school, named The Electric Sausage Nightmare Band. He began to work for various composers for TV, like David Schwartz and Russ Landau. He also began to record his own compositions and launched another band: The Gabriel Mann Situation, a trio that included Adam Marcello and Carson Cohen. The Gabriel Mann Situation opened for the Rolling Stones as sidemen with Tim Burgess of Charlatans UK. Their work was also shown on the TV show Arrested Development. The soundtrack for the 2004 film Sleepover Sleepover included the Gabriel Mann song "Remember", which helped introduce his music to a wider audience.

Living in Los Angeles, Gabriel Mann has been part of a community of singer-songwriters performing frequently at Hotel Café, heading an eponymous band popular in the Los Angeles area, and has toured with Alanis Morissette as part of her European Tour in April of 2005, and opened with Glenn Tilbrook in the USA in May of the same year, and for Jamie Cullum, across North America. He produced Sara Barielles' first album "Careful Confessions" as well as the new release from Naimee Coleman. He has released 5 albums of his own, with "Tall Buildings" being the most recent, released in September of 2007. He has appeared as himself on the 2006 Emmy awards as well as the 2007 Academy Awards show. With his writing partner Rebecca Kneubuhl, he has composed award winning music for video games, among them The Legend of Spyro-Eternal Night, and Time Shift.

Other Groups

Mann is a member of The North La Brea All-Star Conquistadors, a group consisting of singer-songwriters Mann, Adrianne, Garrison Starr, and Jay Nash. Mann is also a member of "The Rescues", a new band consisting of Adrianne, Kyler England and Mann. They have had songs featured on the televison shows Army Wives, Guiding Light and Grey's Anatomy, and in the films "The Superhero Movie" and "The Lucky Ones", as well as worked with Danny Elfman for the movie "Igor".

Awards

Mann won the Overall Grand Prize for the USA Songwriting Competition, was a finalist in the International Songwriting Competition, got 2nd prize in the Just Plain Folks awards, and has been one of Music Connection's top 100 unsigned artists for past the several years.