Conor Brace is a composer, sound designer, and game designer from Austin, Texas.

I remember making simple games in BASIC as a kid and composing custom soundtracks for them, already both a musician and a game developer. So I guess a career at the intersection of these two creative fields was inevitable!

I hold a Bachelor of Arts in Plan II (a Liberal Arts honors program), a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Composition, and a Master of Music in Composition (Jazz Emphasis) from the University of Texas at Austin. During my undergraduate years I studied trumpet with Ray Sasaki and Dennis Dotson and composition with John Mills. I wrote and arranged music for jazz, Latin, and pop groups, taught private trumpet lessons to middle school kids, and played all kinds of live gigs from salsa to opera.

In graduate school I began composing music for short films and video games. I immediately fell in love with it, but I also realized how much I still had to learn — they don’t teach this stuff in traditional music courses! I began ravenously studying media scoring techniques, learning to mock up my compositions using sampled instruments, and wrestling with the unique challenges of writing music to picture. I gradually developed my own scoring style, blending the traditional orchestral language with modern jazz-influenced harmonies and rhythms.

After graduating from U.T. I worked in-house with two amazing local startups, Gendai Games (now GameSalad, Inc.) and D7 Studios (now D7 Games), serving not only as “the audio guy” but also as game designer, community manager, and even producer at various times. I’ve since returned to freelance audio work, offering high-quality music and sound informed by a deep understanding of the game development process.