Jon O’Hara is a composer, orchestrator, pianist, producer, and songwriter born and raised in Los Angeles. Jon has scored for film, television, documentary, and theatre, and has written concert music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and a variety of soloists. His original music has been used in Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order, This is Us, Homeland, NCIS, Bojack Horseman, Insecure, and Uncorked, among many other TV shows and films, as well as the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics.
He currently works alongside legendary composer Mike Post on Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order, Mammoth (BBC), Inside the FBI: NY, and various other Mike Post projects as a composer and orchestrator. Jon was also a composer and orchestrator alongside Post on his upcoming album release Message from the Mountains & Echoes of the Delta, concerti for bluegrass band+orchestra and blues band+orchestra.
Jon recently completed the score for the pilot of Nexus (Dir. Aaron Sims), a futuristic dystopian thriller. He previously worked with Sims on a score for Epic Games & Aaron Sims Creative’s time-bending space thriller short, The Eye: Calanthak, recorded with the Budapest Art Orchestra, which debuted within the videogame Fortnite. He also recently composed the music for the upcoming film Salvation (with Dom Whalley), Trash Studios’ indie survival game Islands: Crusoe, Pink Tax (with Dom Whalley), a social commentary comedy pilot.
Jon has also composed music for many award-winning short films, including Atomic, Raymond, Goliath 22, and many more. Additionally, his music and orchestrations have been featured in films such as Albion: The Enchanted Stallion, 93 Days, and The Black Prince, all composed by George Kallis. He previously assisted both Kris Wilkinson and Jim Gray, Nashville-based composers, orchestrators, and arrangers, working on high-profile pop, alternative, and country records in addition to symphonic arrangements.
Jon grew up studying classical and jazz piano from the age of five and has performed jazz, rock, pop, and classical music in the U.S., Europe, and Central America. From the moment he stepped into a film composer’s studio at the age of 12, he has made it his life goal to become a successful composer for film and television. After dipping his toes in that world via internships and apprenticeships at the end of high school, he went on to earn a Bachelor’s of Music in Composition & Theory from Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. He was the 2014 recipient of the Sue Brewer Award, given to one student for excellence in Composition and Theory. The following year, he received his Masters of Music in Scoring for Film, Television, and Video Games from Berklee College of Music in Valencia, Spain, and had the privilege to conduct his original score to Celles et Ceux des Cimes et Cieux at Abbey Road Studios, performed by members of the London Philharmonic. After receiving his masters, Jon returned to Los Angeles and has been composing for a variety of exciting projects ever since.
Additionally, Jon produces music for a variety of recording artists, garnering millions of streams on various records. In his free time, he loves to write, play tennis, hike, and travel. Jon is affiliated with BMI as a composer and songwriter as well as a publisher (Sound Happens Publishing).