Chance Thomas
Chance Thomas is an American composer, author, and entrepreneur. As a composer, he creates original music for animation, video games, movies, television, and virtual reality. His music has received critical acclaim and commercial success, underscoring an Oscar, an Emmy, and billions of dollars in sales worldwide.
Chance is best known for scoring video games like DOTA 2, The Lord of the Rings Online and James Cameron’s Avatar. He also scored Columbia Pictures’ The ChubbChubbs!, which won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, and the TV film Lost Treasure Hunt, which was nominated for two Daytime Emmy Awards.
Chance is the author of the university textbook Composing Music for Games: The Art, Technology and Business of Video Game Scoring. The book was released in 2016 by CRC Press, a Taylor and Francis Publishing imprint. As an entrepreneur, Chance founded HUGEsound in 1998 and sold it in 2016 to a large and diversified entertainment conglomerate, R Legacy Entertainment. He served as VP of Music and Creative Development for HUGEsound Post Production until its demise in late 2018.
His projects have won major awards, including an Oscar, Emmy, IGN, Telly, Aurora and several G.A.N.G. awards. He is considered the father of game music Grammy eligibility and was honored in 2013 with the Game Audio Network Guild's Recognition Award.
Early life
Throughout high school, Thomas formed and played in progressive rock bands until he was called to serve a mission in northern Italy for the LDS Church. When he returned home in 1982, he met his bride-to-be, Pamela, at a single's ward family home evening. Thomas worked at UPS, putting his music on hold while pursuing a business degree at Central Oklahoma State University. While in rehab due to a torn shoulder, a friend informed him of a job as an entertainer at a pizza restaurant. Thomas got the job, which paid more than UPS. After two and a half years in Oklahoma, he received a transfer scholarship to finish his business degree at Brigham Young University in Utah. Shortly after his transfer, he switched his scholarship to the music school and eventually graduated with a bachelor's degree in music.Career
Chance Thomas began his professional career as a performer, singing and playing piano as well as keyboard at ski resorts in the Rocky Mountains and on cruise ships in the Caribbean. In 1991, he opened a small music production company and studio in Salt Lake City, Utah, called byChance Productions and began creating music for ad agencies and corporate clients. He made several orchestral scores for public service announcements produced by non-profits like The Salvation Army, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and The United Way.He emerged into the video game industry in 1996. At the time, Sierra Online was looking for a full-time composer, and Chance moved back to California to take the job. This opportunity allowed him to write music for Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire, creating one of the first orchestral video game scores in history. In the late 1990s, Chance led a successful movement which brought game music into the Grammy Awards. The Quest for Glory soundtrack was a factor in the Academy creating three new categories — Best Score, Best Song and Best Soundtrack for Film, Television and Other Visual Media.
Chance was also an innovator in video games. He led the design and implementation of one of the world's first successful adaptive music systems based on digital audio streams. He also pioneered new techniques for composing game music, including ambient set matrices and interactive scoring maps. When Sierra Online closed the doors of its California studio in 1998, Chance opened HUGEsound, located just outside Yosemite National Park. Projects scored during that time included the Oscar-winning film, The ChubbChubbs!, and games like Peter Jackson’s King Kong, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and Lord of the Rings Online.
In 2007, Chance relocated HUGEsound to Utah and continued to compose for high-profile game titles like Avatar: the Game, Heroes of Might and Magic, and ''DOTA 2.''
Lord Of The Rings Online
Chance Thomas' Lord of the Rings Online scores are among his most acclaimed and documented work so far. He based the instrumental palettes, vocal ranges, stylistic tendencies and emotional conjuring of many pieces on direct references/inferences scattered throughout the text. On June 16, 2017, Thomas released The Lord of the Rings Online: 10th Anniversary Commemorative Soundtrack through HUGEsound Records. The album contains tracks from 2007 to 2017.HUGEsound
In 1998, Chance launched HUGEsound in Oakhurst, California as a full-service audio development company to service clients in film and gaming. HUGEsound provided sound design, foley, original music scoring and song production for The ChubbChubbs!, among other projects, for nearly 20 years. In September 2016, Chance sold HUGEsound to R Legacy Entertainment, a privately held umbrella corporation containing a diversified portfolio of entertainment companies in Nashville, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake City.In February 2017, HUGEsound Post Production was opened as a 16,000 square foot recording and production facility. It offered a variety of post-production services in picture, music, and sound.