page_title: Brian Keane
section_title: 1990s
hierarchical_section_title: Brian Keane / Biography / Professional career / Composer and Record Producer / 1990s
caption_attribution_description: English: Brian Keane and Ric Burns at work on "The Way West" 1995
context_page_description: Brian Keane is a multi Emmy and Grammy award-winning American composer, music producer, and guitarist. In a career that has spanned more than four decades, he has composed the music for hundreds of films and television shows and produced over a hundred record albums. Keane is known as a world class guitarist, a musical pioneer in scoring music for television documentaries, a leading record producer of the 1980s and 1990s, and one of the most prominent and influential composers of his era.
  Among the over four hundred films that Keane has scored, well over one hundred are award-winning, including eighteen Emmy winners for best documentary or series, nine Peabody Award-winning films, six Oscar nominated films, and one Academy Award-winning film. Keane has won four Emmy Awards for his music, among twenty nominations.
context_section_description: The early 1990s saw Brian's composing career rise dramatically in stature with the multiple-award-winning General Motors' Playwright's Theatre series for Nederlander television, which ran for four years on A&E, the Emmy- and Columbia Dupont-winning miniseries The Great Depression and The War on Poverty for the prominent film maker Henry Hampton, the highly influential Ric Burns film The Donner Party (documentary) which won a Peabody in 1992, and the Emmy- and Peabody-winning film The Battle of the Bulge, for Oscar-winning director Thomas Lennon. Brian scored many award-winning films for the PBS history series American Experience, working with producer Judy Crichton, directors Carl Charlson, Ben Loeterman, Mark Zwonitzer, and others. Brian also scored several award-winning specials for National Geographic working with director Oren Jacoby, and again with the Simon and Goodman picture company. In addition, Brian was hired by ABC News in the early nineties to be the composer for the first prime time, hour-long, news documentary series Turning Point. Working with producers Rudy Bednar and Betsy West, Turning Point would become the first of several news documentary series Brian scored for ABC News in the 1990s, and the musical approach developed for ABC News has been adopted in many subsequent news documentary series. Because of demand, Brian began hiring orchestrators, many of whom would go on to become successful in their own right like Michael Bacon, Richard Fiocca, Don Grady, Michael Terry, and others.
  Keane's prominence as a record producer was also rising with the release of the critically acclaimed, and commercially successful early nineties albums. Tibetan Bells: The Empty Mirror for Celestial, Firedance, and Beyond the Sky with Omar Faruk Tekbilek, John Boswell's Festival of the Heart, Celtic Twilight for Hearts of Space, and Song Of The Irish Whistle featuring Irish whistler Joanie Madden, among others. In 1992, Brian produced the Grammy nominated comedy album You're Good Enough, You're Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like You featuring the comic, turned United States senator, Al Franken. Also in 1992, following the success of Brian's production of jazz saxophonist Nelson Rangell's CD for GRP records, working with executive producers Dave Wilkes and Danny Weiss, Brian was signed by legendary music executive Bruce Lundvall, and became a Blue Note recording artist with his debut release of Common Planet. However, despite the successful debut of Common Planet, Brian resigned from his career as a recording artist. By that point, Brian was the father of young children and already in demand as a record producer and composer. He would let go of his career as a touring guitarist from that point on, but continue to record as a guitarist on records and soundtracks.
  By the mid 1990s Brian Keane was firmly established as a leading composer in documentary film, and a prominent producer of ethnic and New Age music simultaneously. The later 1990s brought Keane widespread success as a record producer with over three dozen Billboard charting albums for Windham Hill, RCA, Sony, Hearts of Space, and other record labels. Brian produced several successful Windham Hill records including the billboard chart topping CD's Carols of Christmas, Thanksgiving, and several CD's in the hugely popular Winter's Solstice, and Summer Solstice series. Brian also signed Sean Harkness (a former guitar student) to a deal with Windham Hill. Brian also produced several critically acclaimed ethnic records including: Via Jo, and Afrika Wassa for Senegalese artist Vieux Diop, and Este Es Mi Mariachi featuring Linda Ronstadt and Mariachi Cobre. In addition, Brian became well established in producing prominent Irish artists including several RCA records for the female Irish traditional group Cherish The Ladies, Riverdance fiddling sensation Eileen Ivers, and others. In 1998, Brian collaborated with Chieftains founder Paddy Moloney composing and producing the music for the Disney and PBS joint production Long Journey Home: The Irish in America. The RCA soun
caption: Brian Keane and director Ric Burns working on The Way West 1995
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