Russ Landau

Russell Landau is a composer of film and television scores and themes including "Survivor", "Fear Factor", and "Pirate Master" for which he won an Emmy in 2008.

After completing university , Russ Landau moved to New York City, where he worked as a session musician and joined the Paul Winter Consort as their bassist . For more than a decade he traveled the world as a bassist, and as a producer of more than ten albums by the group helping Winter earn a Grammy. He went on to produce recordings for many other artists, ranging from blues rocker South Side Johnny to Irish vocalist Nóirín Ní Riain.

Working in his Greenwich Village studio, he scored numerous projects including a short HBO film called "Cat and Mousse", which was nominated for the Grand Prize in Short Films at the Cannes Film Festival. Later, he moved to Los Angeles, California to focus on film and television scoring.

His first regular episodic scoring assignment was Steven Spielberg's "SeaQuest DSV". He was then hired to write the opening theme and score to "SeaQuest 2032", which led to his first Emmy nomination. Subsequently, Landau began working on such television projects as the CBS series "Moloney", FOX's "Fire Co. 132", CBS's "Four Corners" and the USA Network series "The Net", before landing "Survivor". As a result of signing on with "Survivor", another major milestone in Landau's career came with his second Emmy nomination for its theme, "Ancient Voices," in 2001. He composed the theme "Pirates" for now-cancelled "Pirate Master" in 2007. In 2008, it earned him the Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music.

Russ Landau has themed and scored many prime time series including "Eco Challenge" for USA, "Fear Factor" (1, 2, 3 and 4) for NBC, Survivor, "Survivor UK" for ITV based out of London, "Survivor Philippines" for GMA Network based out of Manila, "Combat Missions" for USA, "Prehistoric Planet" (NBC), "Anything for Love" (FOX), NBC's "America’s Most Talented Kid", "Dog Eat Dog", The Restaurant 1 & 2, "Average Joe", "Three Wishes", "Game Show Marathon", "The Assistant", "National Bingo Night", "Pirate Master", and many others.

His feature film résumé includes such indie titles as the 1998 Jennifer Love Hewitt romance "Telling You", the thriller "Nowhere Land", Killer Bud, Love and Action In Chicago, Superfire, Racehoss or The Life and times of Albert "Racehoss" Sample, and the film "Lost" (2005).

In addition to his film and television his work, Landau composed the underscore for the CD & museum book: "Dinosongs: Poems to Celebrate A T-Rex Named Sue,” narrated by Susan Sarandon and written by Kevin Krotty, which earned him another Grammy nomination. He has donated composing services to the Make A Wish Foundation and the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund, for which he wrote the opening theme music of their website.