Mark Snow: “Files X” composer died at the age of 78

Grief for a formative television composer: Mark Snow (1946-2025), who wrote television history with his unmistakable title melody for the TV series “Files X”, died on July 4th at the age of 78 in his home in Connecticut.

The composer, who was born in Martin Fulterman, leaves an impressive musical heritage. As a 15-fold Emmy nominated, he shaped over 200 episodes by Chris Carter’s dark Fox series and also created the musical accompaniment for other cult series such as “hard but warm”, “TJ Hooker”, “Smallville”, “Ghost Whisperer” and “Blue Bloods”.

Snow was one of the first composers who dared to make the leap from classic orchestral music to purely electronic composition in the late 1980s. The Juilliard graduate worked in his home studio alone and only created music up to 40 minutes a week with synthesizers and other electronic devices.

Snow in 2016 described his revolutionary approach in an interview with the “Television Academy”: “It took a few years before I felt comfortable with electronics and created a little, the melodic music was close. At the beginning I mainly used it for atmospheric accompaniment. But the technology developed rapidly.”

Snow was particularly famous by a spontaneous inspiration during working on the pilot film from “File X” in 1993. What followed was surprised himself: the song reached the top 10 charts in England, Ireland, France and other European countries in 1996.

“Actually, not much exciting happens in the song. It stays in A minor, contains no vocals, no drums or guitar, and yet it got a huge hit. It was pretty crazy,” Snow remembered later.

Sean Callery (born 1964), composer of the series “24” and long -time friend Snow, praised the deceased to the industry magazine: “His limitless talent and his tireless creativity were only exceeded by his generosity towards other composers. He always gave inspiring and intelligent feedback and encouraged composers to trust her own voice.”

Snow also composed other series “Millennium”, “Harsh Realm” and “The Lone Gunmen” for Carter’s other series and received another Emmy nomination for the melody of “Nowhere Man” in 1996.

Born in New York, his musical career started on the piano. After studying at the New York High School of Music and Art, he made friends with Michael Kamen (1948-2003), the later composer of “Lethal Weapon” and “Die Slow”.

Both studied at the renowned Juilliard School of Music from 1964 to 1968 and founded the New York Rock & Roll ensemble. At Atlantic Records they recorded albums for five years and even appeared in Leonard Bernstein’s TV show “Young People’s Concerts” in 1969.

In 1974 Snow moved to Los Angeles, where his brother -in -law, actor Georg Stanford Brown (82), helped him get the first orders at “ABC”. His breakthrough was achieved with the romantic drama series “Hart but warm but warm”, for which he wrote the title melody and over 90 scores.

In addition to his Emmy nominations, he received the ASCAP Golden Note Award in 2005 and in 2014 a Career Achievement Award from the TV Academy.

Mark Snow leaves his wife Glynnis and three daughters and grandchildren.