David Shephard

David Shephard is screen composer best known for his soundtracks to the crime series Longmire. Starting out in the music departments of film and TV shows in the early 2000s, he provided additional music for dozens of TV projects while also working as an orchestrator on films including The Grudge 2 (2006) and The Monkey King (2014). With a spare, atmospheric score that incorporated guitar and keyboards, he was the main composer on the series Longmire from 2012 until it went off the air in 2017. A native of New York, Shephard began formal music study at the age of five. A classical and jazz pianist, he went on earn the position of accompanist at both the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center and the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. Also interested in composing for film and TV from a young age, he eventually moved to Los Angeles for the opportunity to work with some of Hollywood's busiest composers. After writing scores for shorts such as Lather. Rinse. Repeat. (2002) and For Which It Stands (2003), his first solo composing credit on a feature film was the 2006 thriller Fierce Friend. Meanwhile, his additional music appeared in series such as the reality show The Princes of Malibu (2005-2006) and the action-drama Flash Gordon (2007-2008). He also did orchestrations for films including The Grudge 2 (2006), When in Rome (2010), and The Monkey King (2014). Shephard soon began to find more steady work as main composer, including on the first season of Into the Badlands (2015) and on the A&E/Netflix series Longmire for its entire six-season run (2012-2017).
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