The Stargate world was saddened to hear today of the passing of Joel Goldsmith, the music composer of nearly all of the music for all three Stargate series and both DVD movies. As reported here and here, Joel died after a long battle with cancer; he was 54 years old and lived in the Los Angeles area.
Joel was nominated for three Emmy awards for his work on Stargate, which was especially impressive given that he used music synthesizers for the show, rather than a full orchestra, due to budgetary limitations. He was beloved by the producers and cast, who were especially thrilled to watch Joel lead a live orchestra for the DVD movies, as we described here.
On a personal note, I had the opportunity to meet Joel at the Creation Stargate convention in Burbank in 2005. Joel was quietly humble and very kind, and intensely passionate about his music. He took the time to sign autographs for any fans who wanted one for free, and he broke the news about the shortened Stargate Atlantis opening credits that would so anger fans when it really happened.
If you haven’t before now, we highly recommend fans purchase his three Stargate-related CDs:
We join all of Stargate fandom in expressing our condolences to Joel’s family, friends, and colleagues.
He was an extremely talented man. I’m so sorry to hear that he was ill. My condolences.