ARTISTJustin Hurwitz

Justin Hurwitz is a composer best known for his collaborations with college friend and director Damien Chazelle. Their early projects include Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, for which Hurwitz wrote the music, and Whiplash (2014). The latter’s score earned him a Grammy nomination. For La La Land (2016), Hurwitz won Academy Awards for its score and the original song “City of Stars,” shared with lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. He later composed the score for First Man (2018) and Babylon (2022), his fifth feature-length collaboration with Chazelle.

Raised in California in a family involved in the arts, Hurwitz began playing piano at six and composing at ten. After his family moved to Fox Point, Wisconsin, he attended Nicolet High School and studied with pianist Stefanie Jacob at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee. He graduated in 2003 and continued his education at Harvard. As a teenager, he was introduced to jazz by his uncle Ron, who gave him an Oscar Peterson record. He played with Chazelle in the band Chester French. Hurwitz has also written for The Simpsons and The League. In 2017, he produced and wrote episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, an undertaking that resulted in an Emmy nomination for the series.