Mario Grigorov
Mario Grigorov is a celebrated Bulgarian-born composer and pianist, whose work spans film, television, and concert music. A musical prodigy from the age of five, Mario was one of the youngest students admitted to the Sofia Conservatory. His early years were marked by studies across four countries, culminating in a mastery of jazz, classical, and electronic music.
Film & Entertainment Career
In 2014, Mario began a collaboration with director David Yates on a Warner Bros film starring Margot Robbie, Samuel L. Jackson, and Christoph Waltz. This partnership led to his involvement in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, where he composed and co-wrote an original song with J.K. Rowling.
Mario is well-known for his long-standing collaboration with Academy Award-winning director Lee Daniels, scoring films such as Shadowboxer, Tennessee, the Academy Award-winning Precious, and The Paperboy starring Nicole Kidman. His score for the supernatural thriller Beyond, starring Jon Voight, earned high praise, with Voight calling him a "master at his craft." Director Susan Seidelman also lauded Mario’s work on her film Musical Chairs, praising his ability to elevate the emotional impact of the movie without compromising his artistic vision.
In television, Mario created the haunting scores for Lifetime’s cult classics Flowers in the Attic and its sequel Petals on the Wind. His international work includes scoring for films such as Patang by Indian director Prashant Bhargava, The Hopes and Dreams of Gazza Snell by New Zealand’s Brendan Donovan, and several films by Uruguayan director Leonardo Ricagni, for which Mario received the Best Original Score award at the Hamptons Film Festival.
Mario’s documentary credits are equally impressive, with scores for Third Wave: A Volunteer Story presented by Sean Penn, the Anna Halpern biographical film Breath Made Visible, and the Oscar-winning war documentary Taxi to the Darkside by Alex Gibney.
Artist History
Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, to a concert trumpeter and a concert pianist, Mario was immersed in music from a young age. His family’s relocations to Iran and Germany exposed him to a wide array of musical influences, from classical to the rock sounds of Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, which sparked his interest in improvisation.
Mario's formal education continued in Vienna, Austria, where he studied at the Vienna Conservatorium. It was there that he began to break away from the strictures of classical music, seeking to express his own artistic vision. This exploration continued in Sydney, Australia, where he studied electronic music and began working as a producer, arranger, and composer for Australian jazz and rock groups, eventually moving into film scoring.
A move to Los Angeles marked a turning point in Mario’s career. Under the mentorship of film composer Miles Goodman, he quickly made a name for himself. A chance encounter with Warner Brothers Records A&R executive Bob James led to a major-label recording contract, resulting in his debut album Rhymes with Orange, a blend of classical, jazz, rock, and Bulgarian folk influences.
Following the success of Rhymes with Orange, Mario released Aria, an album that fused operatic anthems with his signature dark, ambient style, reaching No. 4 on Billboard’s Top Classical Crossover chart. After spending 15 years in New York, where he founded a music production company and expanded into audio branding, Mario returned to Los Angeles to focus on his film career. He now divides his time between Berlin, London, and Los Angeles.
In addition to his work as a composer, Mario explores ambidextrous creative outlets like simultaneous two-handed symmetrical drawings and has developed an experimental keyboard technique known as Mirror Tones™.