Award winning composer Walter Murphy works in television, film and the music industry.
He has been nominated for five Emmy Awards, winning for the song, “You’ve Got A Lot To See”, from “Family Guy”. He was nominated for an Oscar for “Everybody Need s A Best Friend” from the movie, “Ted” and nominated for three Grammy Awards, winning for “A Fifth Of Beethoven”, from “Saturday Night Fever”. Walter was also nominated for two animation Annie Awards and has received many ASCAP and BMI Top Screen Music awards spanning his career.
Working with 60 piece orchestra each week, Walter continues to showcase his ability to write music in all styles and in all genres for the FOX hit shows “Family Guy” and “American Dad”. He composed the theme songs to both shows and continues to compose the series’ underscores.
Along with television, Walter has also collaborated with Seth MacFarlane on two of his movie projects, “Ted” and “Ted 2”. Working with an 80 piece orchestra for both features, he composed romantic comedy-adventure scores which included the Oscar nominated song, “Everybody Needs A Best Friend”, sung by Norah Jones.
Other projects include Warner Brothers ‘Looney Tunes Feature Cartoons”, the theme and underscore to FOX series, “The Cleveland Show”, and the NBC special, “How Murray Saved Christmas” garnering another Emmy nomination for the song, “You Gotta Believe.”
Walter has composed the underscore for the FOX/WB series, “Buffy, The Vampire Slayer” as well as for the long running ABC series “The Commish”. For Interscope Records, he composed, arranged and co-produced the Grammy nominated album, “Family Guy Live In Vegas”. He has also conducted his music and songs for live Family Guy performances in Los Angeles, Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and Carnegie Hall in New York.
Born and raised in New York, Walter studied the organ and classical and jazz piano, composing for his high school band and orchestra. Accepted to the Manhattan School Of Music as a composition major, he studied with Nicolas Flagello and Ludmila Ulehla, graduating with a degree in composition. While in college he composed and arranged for Doc Severinsen and The Tonight Show orchestra. He also released his first record, “A Fifth Of Beethoven” which became a hit and was later featured in the film, “Saturday Night Fever”. It received a Grammy nomination and win for him.
Walter continues to challenge himself musically with wide-ranging musical interests and projects. He resides in Los Angeles with his wife, Claudia.