Emmy-award winning and Grammy-nominated composer Jay Chattaway can pinpoint the exact moment he realized he wanted to compose scores for film and television.
It was the summer of his freshman year in college when he went to see composer Henry Mancini, the man behind the Pink Panther theme, conduct the Pittsburgh Symphony.
“That moment was my light bulb,” he said. “It just went off and I said, ‘I want to do that.’”
From there, Mr. Chattaway, a long-time seasonal Island resident, went on to compose the music for dozens of movies and hundreds of hours of TV, including 200-plus episodes over a 16-year period on Star Trek.
Islanders will get a glimpse into Mr. Chattaway’s process during the annual FILMUSIC Festival hosted by the Martha’s Vineyard Film Society this weekend. The festival takes place June 27 to 30 and includes seven films, ranging from an homage to Jimmy Page, a biopic about Luther Vandross and a meditative musical journey called Cabin Music.
Mr. Chattaway and his wife Terri Potts-Chattaway will show some behind-the-scenes footage and clips from Mr. Chattaway’s TV and film career, and talk about how music brings films to life during their Where Does The Music Come From? event Saturday, June 29.
Ms. Potts-Chattaway also detailed her husband’s personal and professional career in a book that was released two weeks ago titled Journey To The Inner Light. A book launch and signing will be a part of the film society event.
In an interview at his Edgartown home this week, Mr. Chattaway, 77, said he doesn’t take the ability to develop scores lightly.
“My theory is that the music is always there floating around in our universe, and only certain people are chosen to be the translators for it,” he said. “My gift is to be able to hear and compose music that is inspired by outside forces, which I can’t really identify.”
Mr. Chattaway grew up in Pennsylvania and while studying at West Virginia University, he was drafted into the military during the Vietnam war. There he arranged and composed music for the Navy band.
Afterwards, he found his way to New York City and California to jumpstart his career in Hollywood.
Mr. Chattaway ended up working with the science fiction behemoth Star Trek partially due to luck. He got his shot after sending in some of his music in which he had incorporated the sound of whales singing.
“The Star Trek people thought that I might be just odd enough that I fit into their circle of composers,” he said. “Soon after I was hired to work 15 years straight doing space music.”
The process of scoring a TV show is fast-moving, according to the couple. Mr. Chattaway and Ms. Potts-Chattaway met while working on Star Trek together, Ms. Potts-Chattaway being a producer. Oftentimes, a score would have to be finished and recorded within a week to be put on air, creating a high workload.
“I would record the music from one episode and I go home, and start writing the music for the next show,” Mr. Chattaway said. “It’s very difficult and one has to budget your time . . . it was fun, but it was sleep deprivation time for 15 years. But it paid off. I have an Emmy for that and six other nominations. That’s kind of cool.”
Mr. Chattaway won an Emmy in 2001 for his work in the final episode of Star Trek: Voyager, but one other career highlight stands out.
In 2015, Mr. Chattaway conducted the London Philharmonic at the Royal Albert Hall during the world premiere of Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyager. Ms. Potts-Chattaway’s new book on her husband’s work starts and finishes retelling Mr. Chattaways musical journey with that concert at Royal Albert Hall.
The title of the book accurately encapsulates Mr. Chattaway’s life, according to Ms. Potts-Chattaway.
“Journey To The Inner Light is [Jay’s] most famous piece from the television episode of Next Generation called The Inner Light,” Ms. Potts-Chattaway said. “It’s not just Journey To The Inner Light as piece of music, [but] it’s the inner light meaning his muse.”
Besides music, Mr. Chattaway’s other passion is sailing. When they’re not in their Vineyard home, the couple is cruising around the pacific coast of Mexico.
“It’s inspirational,” Mr. Chattaway said. “Because there’s not a lot of outside forces, other than the wind and the weather to deal with and the motion. So you’re just completely free.”
For their panel at the film center Saturday, the couple will talk about Mr. Chattaway’s process and share clips of his work on Star Trek and other projects.
When MV Film Society executive director Richard Paradise was putting together the lineup, he purposefully put the Chattaways and a film about Ennio Morricone, the Italian Academy Award winning composer famous for his spaghetti westerns scores, on the same day.
Coincidentally, Mr. Morricone is one of Mr. Chattaway’s biggest influences.
“[The order] wasn’t planned,” Ms. Potts-Chattaway said. “They didn’t know that this man really influenced Jay’s music and how he writes.”
Saturday is “devoted to film scoring as an art form,” according to Mr. Paradise.
“Music and the soundtrack of films adds so much to the emotional value of any film that you go out and see, especially in narrative film,” he said.
As an educator himself, Mr. Chattaway’s excited for attendees to engage with his lifelong passion.
“We’re hoping we get lots of good questions because that’s where the learning and the excitement really comes from,” he said.
The industry can be fleeting, in terms of what media make an impact and what is forgotten in the fast-paced nature of Hollywood. His scores being recognized so many years later as iconic fixtures of the series is rewarding, according to Mr. Chattaway.
“You put your life and heart into something and then it comes and goes,” he said. “It’s kind of like the ocean. [I wrote] a piece of music 30 years ago, and it’s still on the air.”
The Chattaway event takes place June 29 at 4 p.m. at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center. For tickets and more information about the FILMUSIC festival, visit mvfilmsociety.com.
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