David Ari Leon (born December 12, 1967) is an Emmy Award-nominated American composer, music supervisor songwriter and musician.
Leon's first professional music credit was in 1990 working with Danny Elfman on the feature film Nightbreed. He is best known for writing and supervising music for Marvel Entertainment on titles including Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk. He is a songwriter on the themes to the Marvel series The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and The Super Hero Squad Show, and composed the main title music to the shows Xyber 9: New Dawn and Mr. Bill Presents. Leon was commissioned by the Academy of Motion Pictures to compose music for their Academy Museum of Motion Pictures exhibition “Path to Cinema,” as well as being commissioned by NASA to be the music supervisor on their video "29 Days on the Edge" about the James Webb Space Telescope which NASA launched in 2021.
Featured music
Leon has been featured as a music artist on NPR's syndicated programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered in ten episodes between the years 2005 to 2018.
He was also featured on the album "Rockabye Baby! Baby's Favorite Rock Songs," which was available exclusively at Starbucks March 23 – April 19, 2010. The album reached #3 on Billboard'''s Kids Albums chart, #18 on the Billboard Independent Albums, and #111 on the Billboard Top 200. It contains a version of the Rolling Stones song Ruby Tuesday that Leon performed and produced for the Rockabye Baby! series, which also features the artists Björk, Journey and Kanye West.
Education and early career
College
In 1990, Leon received a B.A. degree from UCLA in music composition, where he focused on piano performance, film scoring and electronic music production. While attending the university, he did internships with Academy Award-nominated composers, Mark Isham and Danny Elfman, the latter of which resulted in Leon's first feature film credit on the Clive Barker film Nightbreed. Immediately following his completion of university, Leon worked on Days of Our Lives, garnering him an Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Music Director."
Marvel and Fox
In 1994, Leon began working for New World, the parent company of Marvel at that time, as music director and composer on the TV series Valley of the Dolls. The following year (1995) was the start of his work for Marvel as composer and music supervisor on the show Spider-Man, along with other titles for Fox Kids.
Leon subsequently held a vice president of music title for Fox from 1997 to 2002. During that time, he received music supervisor credits on many film and television projects for Fox such as the miniseries Les Misérables starring John Malkovich and the primetime series State of Grace, starring Frances McDormand.
Recent works
More recently, Leon performed and arranged songs for a series of albums on Vitamin Records by artists including Neil Young, The Cure, R.E.M. and Pink Floyd. He has also music supervised and written music for a series of interactive and Motion Comics for Marvel, starting with The Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon, and including the recent Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which was the first digital comic to have an interactive soundtrack. Other more recent work for Marvel includes Leon being the music supervisor on eight films co-produced by Lions Gate including Thor: Tales of Asgard and The Invincible Iron Man. 2019 found Leon writing a series of songs for the successful Netflix Original series, Super Monsters. While continuing his TV music work on shows such as the Emmy winning ABC show Sea Rescue and the Emmy nominated ABC show The Wildlife Docs, Leon also currently scores music for popular titles for EA and other interactive companies. Games with Leon's music include hit titles such as Contre Jour, Superman, Snoopy Coaster and Woody Woodpecker, which garnered Leon a Hollywood Music in Media Award nomination for his original score to the title. Leon's music was also included in the educational project Kiwaka'', a game exploring the concept of tangential learning.
Filmography +Works with a credit of Music Supervisor and/or ComposerYear(s)TitleCredited asNotes Music Supervisor Composer 1990--1994 Days of Our Lives NBCUniversal, 300 episodesEmmy Nomination, Outstanding Music 1994 Valley of the Dolls A Fox series, 65 episodes 1995--1998 Spider-Man A Marvel series starringMark Hamill, 65 episodes 1995 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers A Fox series, 28 episodes1996 Masked Rider A Fox series, 40 episodes Oliver Twist Power Rangers Zeo 1996--1997 The Incredible Hulk A Marvel series starring Luke Perry, 21 episodes 1996--1998 Dragon Ball Z Music Supervised 53 episodes of this series 1997 Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie A 20th Century Studios film 1997 Big Bad Beetleborgs Music Supervised 88 episodes of this series1998 Rusty: A Dog's Tale A film starring Rodney Dangerfield Richie Rich's Christmas Wish A film starring Eugene Levy Ohh Nooo! Mr. Bill Presents A 20th Century Studios seriesstarring Rowan Atkinson, 53 episodes Like Father, Like Santa A film starring Harry Hamlin Power Rangers in Space 1999 Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog A 20th Century Studios series, 50 episodes Power Rangers Lost Galaxy 2000 Les Misérables A miniseries starring John Malkovich St. Patrick: The Irish Legend Recorded an Irish choir in Dublinfor this film with Inon Zur Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue Time Share A Fox film Starring Timothy Dalton 2000--2001 Spider-Man Unlimited A Marvel series, 13 episodes2001 State of Grace An ABC series starring Frances McDormand Three Days A film starring Kristin Davis 2006 Ultimate Avengers A Marvel Studios / Lionsgate film 2000--2007 Xyber 9 A Fox series starring Tim Curry2007 Invincible Iron Man A Marvel Studios / Lionsgate film Doctor Strange A Marvel Studios / Lionsgate film2008 Next Avengers A Marvel Studios / Lionsgate film Wolverine and the X-Men A Marvel series, 26 episodes 2009--2011 Super Hero Squad A Marvel Series, Theme with Parry Gripp 2009 Hulk Vs. A Marvel Studios / Lionsgate film2010 Iron Man: Extremis (Theme)A Marvel series, Theme with Guy Erez,sung by Glen Phillips Planet Hulk A Marvel Studios / Lionsgate film2011 Superman An EA / Warner Bros. game Thor: Tales of Asgard A Marvel Studios / Lionsgate film Contre Jour An EA Game, Won "iPad Game of the Year" Award from Apple in 2011 2010--2012 The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (Theme) A Marvel Series,Theme song with Guy Erez2012 E.T. The Green Planet An EA game Astonishing X-Men A Marvel miniseries Woody Woodpecker An EA / NBCUniversal game with An HMMA Award nominated music score 2013 Snoopy Coaster An EA / Peanuts game. Soundtrackdescribed as "amazing" by reviewer. 2013--2018 The Wildlife Docs An Emmy nominated ABC series130 episodes 2014 Kiwaka A game made with ESA 2018--2019 Super Monsters Songwriter on 10 original songsfor this Netflix series. 2012--2021 Sea Rescue An Emmy-winning ABC series178 episodes 2021 NASA's "29 Days on the Edge" for the JWST NASA Nominated for Webby Award 2025 Committee Animal A film starring Leslie Zemeckis
References
External links
David Ari Leon at Allmusic David Ari Leon at Last.FM