Photo: Sandrine Lee

Born and raised in Queens, New York, Chris Hajian began his musical education at the age of five, studying trumpet under his father, Edward, a professional musician in New York City.  Chris’ formal training started at New York’s “Famed” High School of the Performing Arts, and continued at the Manhattan School of Music, where he graduated with a degree in classical composition.

Chris’s film composition roots began in the indie film movement of the 90’s. He composed the score to Ten Benny, starring Adrian Brody that was selected for the 1996 Sundance Film Festival.  He then began his creative relationship with Bob Celestino when he composed the provocative score for Mr. Vincent that premiered at Sundance the following year.  Chris’ career started to blossom as he worked steadily composing for film, television, and documentaries.

He then went on to compose music for the HBO documentaries Naked States and the sequel Naked World, about the work of photographer Spencer Tunick.  Chris’ television credits include two seasons of The Upright Citizen Brigade on comedy central, as well as scoring The Knights of Prosperity for ABC, and the theme song for Bravo’s Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List.

Television films include scores for Disney’s- My Date With the President’s Daughter.  He also composed period orchestral scores for Samantha: An American Girl Holiday (Revolution Studios – Exec. Producer Julia Roberts), Felicity: An American Girl Adventure, and Molly: An American Girl on the Home front.

Of his many Feature film scores, Chris’ work includes Inspector Gadget 2 (Disney) which he recorded in Australia with an 80 piece orchestra and Other Voices, Other Rooms which is adapted from Truman Capote’s novel.  Also, the gritty cinema verite drama The Take, which had it’s theatrical release 2008 and stars John Leguizamo and Rosie Perez. It was directed by Brad Furman and premiered at the Toronto Film Festival 2007. Yonkers Joe; is an emotional drama, which premiered at The Tribeca Film Festival 2008 and stars Chazz Palmenteri and Christine Lahti. Next, was the feature documentary Nursery University, which tells the stories of various New York City parents on their quests to get their children into nursery school, which had its television debut on the Showtime network.

In addition, Chris scored the dark comedy feature, Ex-Terminators starring Heather Graham and Jennifer Coolidge.  It premiered at the 2009 South-by-Southwest Film Festival.  Then, Chris took on the dogs in Disney’s Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2, which was recorded at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles. More recently he finished the score to “ The Greatest Movie Ever Made” an edgy, comedic indie, which was produced by David Letterman for his production company Worldwide Pants.

Photo: Anthony Grasso

Chris’s latest score is for an intriguing documentary titled “Unraveled,” which chronicles the life of the corrupt lawyer Marc Dreier, who pleaded guilty on May 11, 2009 to charges of conspiracy to commit security fraud and wire fraud in a scheme to sell $700 million dollars in fictitious promissory notes. This score features an intense minimalist sound pallet that combines traditional orchestral instruments with electronic elements. Unraveled was accepted in to this years LA Film Festival and will have its broadcast premiere on the Showtime network.

Chris works out of his production studio located in the Film Center Building on Manhattan’s west side.