Joe Kraemer (composer)
# Joe Kraemer (composer)

Joe Kraemer (born June 21, 1971) is an American composer and conductor of film and television scores. He has worked with director Christopher McQuarrie several times -- The Way of the Gun (2000), Jack Reacher (2012), and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015).

## Biography

Kraemer was born in Buffalo, New York and raised in Albany, New York. His father and uncle were both musicians, and Kraemer began taking piano lessons at an early age. In high school he befriended an older boy named Scott Storm, who became a professional filmmaker. Kraemer's first film score was for a Super-8 film written and directed by Storm, called Chiming Hour. Kraemer, who also acted in the film, was 15 at the time. Storm later introduced Kraemer to filmmakers Bryan Singer and Christopher McQuarrie.

While attending Berklee College of Music in Boston, Kraemer decided he wanted to be a film composer. Through contacts such as Singer and McQuarrie, he was able to obtain work first as a sound (and occasionally music) editor, before eventually crossing over into television and film composing.

Kraemer's first feature film score was the 2000 film The Way of the Gun, a modern-day western written and directed by Oscar-winner Christopher McQuarrie. The film starred Benicio del Toro, Ryan Phillippe, and James Caan. Though the film performed poorly at the box office, it became something of a cult classic, and some industry insiders began to expect great things from Kraemer.

Over the next few years, Kraemer scored music for the hit TV series Femme Fatales, the docudrama Emerald Cowboy (2003); in 2006 he teamed up with his old classmate Scott Storm for the low-budget crime thriller Ten 'til Noon, which won awards at the film festival level; and in 2008 he scored the direct-to-video thriller Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead, written by J. J. Abrams.

In 2012, Kraemer got his chance, composing the score for the Tom Cruise action thriller Jack Reacher (directed by McQuarrie). His score was nominated in the Best Original Score - Feature Film category at the 2012 Hollywood Music In Media Awards. His credits also include the 2014 film Dawn Patrol, starring Scott Eastwood.

Kraemer worked with McQuarrie and Cruise again when he scored the fifth film in the Mission: Impossible franchise, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015).

Since 2015, Kraemer has been providing music and sound design to a number of audio plays released by Big Finish Productions. These include spin-offs for Doctor Who characters such as Madam Vastra, Missy and Rose Tyler, starring the original actors.

In 2016, Kraemer was commissioned by the Dallas Chamber Symphony to write new music for F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans.

In 2017, Kraemer composed the score for the teen anthology series Creeped Out on CBBC.

## Filmography

### Film

| Year | Title | Director | Notes |
| - | - | - | - |
| 1998 | Burn | Scott Storm | |
| 1999 | Chi Girl | Heidi Van Lier | |
| 2000 | The Way of the Gun | Christopher McQuarrie | Also conductor |
| 2000 | Slammed | Michael Gene Brown | |
| 2004 | Open House | Dan Mirvish | Composed with Andrew Melton |
| 2004 | Somewhere | Thomas Whelan | |
| 2004 | Dynamite | Walter Baltzer | |
| 2005 | All Souls Day | Jeremy Kasten | |
| 2005 | House of the Dead 2 | Michael Hurst | |
| 2005 | My Big Fat Independent Movie | Philip Zlotorynski | Composed with Jeremy Sweet |
| 2005 | The Poseidon Adventure | John Putch | |
| 2006 | Monday | Heidi Van Lier | |
| 2006 | Ten 'til Noon | Scott Storm | |
| 2006 | Room 6 | Michael Hurst | |
| 2006 | Grand Junction | Freddy F. Hakimi | |
| 2006 | The Thirst | Jeremy Kasten | |
| 2006 | Dead and Deader | Patrick Dinhut | |
| 2006 | The Darkroom | Michael Hurst | |
| 2008 | Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead | Louis Morneau | |
| 2010 | Confession of a Gangster | Kenneth Castillo | |
| 2012 | Jack Reacher | Christopher McQuarrie | Also conductor BMI Film Music Award for Best Film Music |
| 2013 | Favor | Paul Osborne | |
| 2014 | Dawn Patrol | Daniel Petrie Jr. | |
| 2015 | Boned | Laura Lee Bahr | Composed with Jeremy Broomfield |
| 2015 | Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation | Christopher McQuarrie | Also conductor Original Mission: Impossible themes by Lalo Schifrin IFMCA Award for Best Original Score for an Action/Adventure/Thriller Film World Soundtrack Award for Discovery of the Year |
| 2016 | Blood Moon | Kenneth Kokin | |
| 2018 | Cruel Hearts | Paul Osborne | Composed with Ian Arber and John Massari |
| 2018 | The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot | Robert D. Krzykowski | |
| 2020 | Emily and the Magical Journey | Marcus Ovnell | Previously called Faunutland and the Lost Magic |
| 2022 | Old Man | Lucky McKee | |

### Television

| Year | Title | Studio | Episode(s) |
| - | - | - | - |
| 1997 | Cartoon Sushi | MTV Teletoon | 1 |
| 2009 | Misadventures in Matchmaking | — | 5 |
| 2011 | Femme Fatales | Cinemax | 8 |
| 2017 | Comrade Detective | Amazon Video | 6 |
| 2017 | Creeped Out | CBBC Family Channel | 13 |

### Audiobooks

Since 2015, Kraemer has been providing music and sound design to a number of audio plays released by Big Finish Productions. At first, these were mainly Doctor Who Monthly Adventures plays, but Kraemer has moved to work mainly on spin-offs from the main range.

| Year | Title | Music | Sound Design |
| - | - | - | - |
| 2015 | Doctor Who: The Defectors | Yes | Yes |
| 2016 | Doctor Who: Absolute Power | Yes | Yes |
| 2017 | Doctor Who: Vortex Ice / Cortex Fire | Yes | Yes |
| 2017 | Doctor Who: The Behemoth | Yes | With Josh Arakelian |
| 2017 | Doctor Who: Static | Yes | With Josh Arakelian |
| 2018 | Doctor Who: Kingdom of Lies | Yes | With Josh Arakelian |
| 2018 | Doctor Who: The Helliax Rift | Yes | With Josh Arakelian |
| 2018 | Jenny - The Doctor's Daughter | Yes | With Josh Arakelian |
| 2018 | Doctor Who: Red Planets | Yes | With Josh Arakelian |
| 2018 | Doctor Who: The Dispossessed | Yes | With Josh Arakelian |
| 2018 | Doctor Who: The Quantum Possibility Engine | Yes | With Josh Arakelian |
| 2019 | Missy: Series 1 | Yes | With Josh Arakelian |
| 2019 | The Eighth of March | Yes | With Nigel Fairs and Howard Carter | With Nigel Fairs and Howard Carter |
| 2019 | The Paternoster Gang: Heritage 1 | Yes | Yes |
| 2019 | Transference | Yes | No |
| 2019 | Rose Tyler: The Dimension Cannon | Yes | With Josh Arakelian |
| 2019 | The Paternoster Gang: Heritage 2 | Yes | With Josh Arakelian |
| 2019 | The Robots 1 | Yes | With Josh Arakelian |
| 2020 | The Paternoster Gang: Heritage 3 | Yes | With Josh Arakelian |
| 2020 | Missy: Series 2 | Yes | No |
| 2020 | The Robots 2 | Yes | Yes |
| 2020 | The Paternoster Gang: Heritage 4 | Yes | Yes |
| 2020 | The Robots 3 | Yes | No |
| 2021 | Masterful | Yes | Yes |
| 2021 | Space 1999: Volume 1 | Incidental | No |
| 2021 | Thunderbirds: Terror from the Stars | Yes | No |
| 2021 | The Box of Delights | Yes | No |
| 2021 | First Action Bureau Series 01 | Yes | No |
| 2021 | The Robots 4 | Yes | With Kristin Simpson |
| 2021 | Doctor Who: The God of Phantoms | Yes | Yes |
