James Lavino (born March 7, 1973) is an American composer, known especially for his choral music and his music for film and television. Lavino was born in Philadelphia in 1973 and studied music at The Juilliard School in New York City, where he was a composition student of Behzad Ranjbaran. He later studied in London with Paul Patterson of the Royal Academy of Music. Lavino composed the music for Rebecca Cammisa’s Oscar-nominated film God is the bigger Elvis, the Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning HBO documentary film Which Way Home (from the producers of Juno) and for Henry Singer’s acclaimed BBC film Last Orders. He also scored Alex Karpovsky’s Woodpecker and Sam Neave’s Cry Funny Happy, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The soundtrack to Woodpecker was performed by Lavino, Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood, and Lee Sargent & Tyler Sargent, from the band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Lavino also scored Matthew Galkin’s award-winning HBO documentary I am an animal: the story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA and an eight-part documentary series for BBC television, called Sissinghurst. Lavino wrote songs for the groundbreaking Disney animated show The Book of Pooh, documentary film Sex & Broadcasting (2014).
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