Steve Bartek, born in Garfield Heights, Ohio

Garfield Heights, Ohio

Garfield Heights is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. The population was 28,849 at the time of the 2010 census.-Geography:Garfield Heights is located at ....

 on January 30, 1952, is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 guitarist

Guitarist

A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...

, film composer, conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

 and orchestrator.

Early career

Bartek started off while still in high school, writing songs and playing flute with the psychedelic rock band Strawberry Alarm Clock

Strawberry Alarm Clock

Strawberry Alarm Clock is a psychedelic rock band from Los Angeles best known for their 1967 hit "Incense and Peppermints". The group took its name as an homage to the Beatles' psychedelic hit "Strawberry Fields Forever", reportedly, at the suggestion of their record company Uni Records.They are...

.

After college he worked at the Baked Potato with Leon Gaer under the leadership of Don Randi until joining the theatrical ensemble The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo which became Oingo Boingo

Oingo Boingo

Oingo Boingo was an American new wave band. They are best known for their influence on other musicians, their soundtrack contributions and their high energy Halloween concerts. The band was founded in 1972 as The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, a performance art group...

.

Between 1979 and 1995, Bartek played lead guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

 in New Wave

New Wave music

New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...

 band Oingo Boingo, led by Danny Elfman

Danny Elfman

Daniel Robert "Danny" Elfman is an American composer, best known for scoring music for television and film. Up until 1995, he was the lead singer and songwriter in the rock band Oingo Boingo, a group he formed in 1976...

.

Contrary to some claims, he was never enrolled at a music conservatory but did graduate from UCLA with a degree in Composition

Film and television

Bartek has composed music for television series like The Tick

The Tick

The Tick is a fictional character created by cartoonist Ben Edlund in 1986 as a newsletter mascot for the New England Comics chain of Boston area comic stores. He is an absurdist spoof of comic book superheroes. After its creation, the character spun off into an independent comic book series in...

, Tales from the Crypt

Tales from the Crypt (TV series)

Tales from the Crypt, sometimes titled HBO's Tales from the Crypt, is an American horror anthology television series that ran from 1989 to 1996 on the premium cable channel HBO...

, Nightmare Ned

Nightmare Ned

Nightmare Ned was a short-lived animated television series which ran from April 19, 1997 to August 9, 1997 on ABC. Based on a homonymous video game developed by Creative Capers Entertainment, the show focuses on the life of Ned Needlemeyer , a 10-year-old boy that deals with his daily problems...

and Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories, and movies like An Extremely Goofy Movie

An Extremely Goofy Movie

An Extremely Goofy Movie is a 2000 American direct-to-video animated film made by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Douglas McCarthy, it is the sequel to A Goofy Movie, featuring the return of characters from the television series Goof Troop...

, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

Romy and Michele's High School Reunion is a 1997 comedy film starring Lisa Kudrow, Mira Sorvino, Janeane Garofalo, Camryn Manheim, and Alan Cumming directed by David Mirkin. The plot revolves around two 28-year-old women who appear to have achieved very little success in life and decide to invent...

, Snow Day, "Novacaine

Novocaine (film)

Novocaine is a 2001 film written and directed by David Atkins and starring Steve Martin, Helena Bonham Carter, Laura Dern, Lynne Thigpen and Elias Koteas. The film was shot in the Chicago, Illinois area, during a limited 32-day schedule. The film received extra publicity during production and as...

" and "The Art of Travel". In 1992 he was nominated for a Saturn Award

Saturn Award

The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...

 for his soundtrack to Guilty as Charged but lost to Loek Dikker and Body Parts

Body Parts (1991 film)

Body Parts is a 1991 horror thriller film directed by Eric Red and released by Paramount Pictures. The film stars Jeff Fahey, Kim Delaney, Brad Dourif and Zakes Mokae.-Plot:...

. In 2005, together with Danny Elfman

Danny Elfman

Daniel Robert "Danny" Elfman is an American composer, best known for scoring music for television and film. Up until 1995, he was the lead singer and songwriter in the rock band Oingo Boingo, a group he formed in 1976...

 and Stewart Copeland

Stewart Copeland

Stewart Armstrong Copeland is an American musician, best known as the drummer for the band The Police. During the group's extended hiatus from the mid-1980s to 2007, he played in other bands and composed soundtracks...

, he was awarded an BMI Film & TV Award

Broadcast Music Incorporated

Broadcast Music, Inc. is one of three United States performing rights organizations, along with ASCAP and SESAC. It collects license fees on behalf of songwriters, composers, and music publishers and distributes them as royalties to those members whose works have been performed...

 for his work on Desperate Housewives

Desperate Housewives

Desperate Housewives is an American television comedy-drama series created by Marc Cherry and produced by ABC Studios and Cherry Productions. Executive producer Cherry serves as Showrunner. Other executive producers since the fourth season include Marc Cherry, Bob Daily, George W...

.

As an orchestrator, Bartek has worked on over 50 productions as of 2007, including most Tim Burton

Tim Burton

Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...

 productions, Mission Impossible

Mission: Impossible (film)

Mission: Impossible is a 1996 action thriller directed by Brian De Palma and starring Tom Cruise. Following on from the television series of the same name, the plot follows a new agent, Ethan Hunt and his mission to uncover the mole within the CIA who has framed him for the murders of his entire...

, Good Will Hunting

Good Will Hunting

Good Will Hunting is a 1997 drama film directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Ben Affleck, Minnie Driver, and Stellan Skarsgård...

, Spider-Man

Spider-Man (film)

Spider-Man is a 2002 American superhero film, the first in the Spider-Man film series based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Spider-Man. It was directed by Sam Raimi and written by David Koepp...

and Milk

Milk (film)

Milk is a 2008 American biographical film on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...

.

More recently, he provided the soundtrack for Donovan Cook

Donovan Cook

Donovan R. Cook III is an American film director and animator, best known for creating, directing and producing the animated series 2 Stupid Dogs and directing the Disney animated features Return to Never Land and Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers.Donovan Cook was born in Antioch,...

's indie film

Independent film

An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...

 Rideshare: The Movie, alongside former Oingo Boingo

Oingo Boingo

Oingo Boingo was an American new wave band. They are best known for their influence on other musicians, their soundtrack contributions and their high energy Halloween concerts. The band was founded in 1972 as The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, a performance art group...

 member Johnny "Vatos" Hernandez.

Other work

Steve Bartek did horn arrangements for Avenged Sevenfold

Avenged Sevenfold

Avenged Sevenfold is an American heavy metal band from Huntington Beach, California. Formed in 1999, the group consists of vocalist M. Shadows, lead guitarist Synyster Gates, rhythm guitarist Zacky Vengeance, bassist Johnny Christ....

's song "A Little Piece of Heaven" as well as for John Hiatt

John Hiatt

John Hiatt is an American rock guitarist, pianist, singer, and songwriter. He has played a variety of musical styles on his albums, including New Wave, blues and country. Hiatt has been nominated for several Grammy Awards - although he has never won- and has been awarded a variety of other...

's "Little Head". He produced Raya Yarbrough's eponymous album and arranged strings for the song "Early Autumn". He also did a string arrangement for Ricky Martin's "Vuelve".

Bartek plays guitar for the TV series Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction franchise created by Glen A. Larson. The franchise began with the Battlestar Galactica TV series in 1978, and was followed by a brief sequel TV series in 1980, a line of book adaptations, original novels, comic books, a board game, and video games...

, Trauma

Trauma (TV series)

Trauma is a television series which originally ran on NBC from September 28, 2009 to April 28, 2010 and focused on a group of paramedics in San Francisco, California....

and Walking Dead

Walking Dead

Walking Dead was a Top Ten Z-Trip single featuring Chester Bennington of Linkin Park. The single appeared on Z-Trip's album Shifting Gears released on Hollywood Records in 2005. Chester Bennington also appeared as a surprise guest during Z-Trip's 2005 Coachella performance....

.

Bartek also contributed music to both the ride queue and exit of Disneyland's short-lived Rocket Rods

Rocket Rods

Rocket Rods was an attraction in Tomorrowland at Disneyland in Anaheim, California.-The Ride:Opening on May 22, 1998 as part of the New Tomorrowland, this high-speed attraction ran on the former PeopleMover track...

 attraction in 1998, including a synthesizer arrangement of Steppenwolf

Steppenwolf (band)

Steppenwolf are a Canadian-American rock group that was prominent in the late 1960s. The group was formed in 1967 in Los Angeles by vocalist John Kay, guitarist Michael Monarch, bassist Rushton Moreve, keyboardist Goldy McJohn and drummer Jerry Edmonton after the dissolution of Toronto group The...

's "Born to Be Wild

Born to Be Wild

"Born to Be Wild" is a rock song written by Mars Bonfire and made famous by the Canadian-American rock band Steppenwolf. It is often used in popular culture to denote a biker appearance or attitude...

" and an arrangement of "World of Creativity".

External links

• The Official Steve Bartek Website
• Steve Bartek at the Internet Movie Database
  Internet Movie Database
  Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...