Paul Hepker

Paul Hepker (b. Harare, Zimbabwe; Dec 17, 1967) - South African composer, musical director, pianist, best known for composing the score (with Mark Kilian) for the film Tsotsi, which won the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards in 2005. Hepker and Kilian are also wrote the score for Rendition, the Gavin Hood film with Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon and Meryl Streep amongst others. He has toured extensively with Shirley Bassey, Johnny Clegg and many other talented South African artists (Vusi Mahlasela, Vicky Sampson, Marcalex, Yvonne Chaka-Chaka etc).

He was a successful Musical Director of stage productions of "Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat" for PACT at the State Theatre in Pretoria and The Theatre on the Track in Kyalami, where he also co-devised and musically directed "Heaven can't Wait" and "California Dreamin"' . In the mid 90's he had a duo called 'zelig' (with dyna-mite vocalist Gabriel).

A classically trained pianist (Adolph Hallis) and multi-instrumentalist, Hepker lived and worked in South Africa as a musical director and composer - doing jingles, musicals and TV shows when not off touring the world. Paul moved to Hollywood in 1997, where he now writes for film, TV and stage. Hepker has composed the music for numerous Discovery Channel series - including the wildly popular Alaskan crab-fishing shows: "Deadliest Catch" and "Deadliest Season" and the new, wild, wildlife series "Raw Nature" . [see Paul's own myspace page, various other references including Rendition DVD case etc.]