ABOUT
Joshua Moshier is an Emmy-nominated composer, songwriter and pianist creating music for series, films, interactive media and the stage. His music often explores the poignant space between drama and comedy, offering a fresh musical voice to a wide spectrum of offbeat premises, true-life inspirations and celebrated franchises.
He made his scoring debut with the FX series Baskets, starring Zach Galifianakis and Louie Anderson. Subsequent projects include the Peacock series Mr. Throwback starring Steph Curry and Adam Pally, Netflix’s upcoming series The Undervale, the Apple TV+ series The Shrink Next Door from writer/showrunner Georgia Pritchett, starring Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd, Special (Netflix), Three Busy Debras (Adult Swim), Shrink (Peacock), Sick of It (Sky) and the main title theme to IFC’s Documentary Now! starring Bill Hader and Fred Armisen. His recent film work includes the first theatrical fully-animated Looney Tunes feature The Day the Earth Blew Up, and Wendy Lobel’s documentary Anxiety Club which explores mental health through the perspectives of standup comedians.
Joshua has written and conducted over 500 minutes of music for Warner Bros. Animation’s flagship Looney Tunes Cartoons, for which he received two consecutive nominations for Outstanding Music Direction and Composition for an Animated Program at the first and second annual Children’s and Family Emmys. Additional animation work includes Celia Bullwinkel’s viral short Sidewalk which has been streamed over 95 million times, and the How to Train Your Dragon extension Dragons: Rescue Riders from Dreamworks Animation for Netflix and Peacock.
Selected by Apple to help tell the story of the iconic sounds of the Star Wars universe, his score can be heard in the featurette Behind the Mac: Skywalker Sound. His interactive ambisonic music and sound design can be heard in Google’s Earth VR.
Joshua’s latest album release is Semipermanence, a dreamy and genre-fluid solo debut that weaves together his work in the worlds of film, songwriting and improvised music. Semipermanence shows his vision as a bandleader: a new-classical and jazz foundation paired with indie pop and soul sensibilities. It’s a cohesive yet unpredictable journey, grounded by riveting performances, often flowing into songs with foregrounded vocals. Each track is a beacon back to an era of Moshier’s musical history to date, with trusted contributors Macie Stewart, Jeff Parker, Marquis Hill, Sabina Sciubba, Caroline Davis and Akenya playing key roles in defining the album’s intricate compositions.
Semipermanence was named a best new album by All Songs Considered from NPR Music, and playlisted by Josh Terry’s No Expectations and Spotify Editorial’s State of Jazz. The album premiered with a quartet of videos created by Micah Gardner, including Listen to Semipermanence with Fred Armisen. Semipermanence is available as a physical release and is streaming on all music services.
Born in Baton Rouge, LA and raised in the midwest, Joshua studied at Northwestern University, where he began collaborating with student filmmakers and working at the Interactive Audio Lab in the Computer Science department. As an improvising pianist, he found kinship in Chicago’s comedy community which led to film collaborations with improvising actors.
Lending his musical voice to a number of bands including trumpeter Marquis Hill’s Blacktet and the Moshier-Lebrun Collective with saxophonist Mike Lebrun, Joshua’s work as a pianist has been profiled on NPR’s JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater and cited by the Chicago Tribune for “considerable lyric grace and compositional forethought."
He premiered his extended work, The Studs Terkel Project at the Chicago Cultural Center, commissioned by Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works program and inspired by the writing of the oral historian Studs Terkel. In Chicago, Joshua also worked as a pianist with Milton Suggs, John Moulder and Dara Tucker. With Mike Lebrun he released the recordings Joy Not Jaded and The Local Colorists.
He segued more deeply into scoring as a fellow at the Sundance Institute Composers Lab at Skywalker Sound and the BMI Conducting Workshop. He has since operated studios from both U.S. coasts.
Joshua has presented his work and music for a variety of schools and organizations, including the Academy of Scoring Arts, the Society of Composers and Lyricists, ASIFA-Hollywood, Google, New York University, Northwestern University’s Sound Arts program, University of Cincinnati, the Youth Orchestra of Bucks County and St. Lawrence University.