Dylan Thurston is a percussionist, pianist, and composer for visual media. Known for his imaginative hybrid scores, he infuses his work with the pop sensibilities gained from a long career as a touring and session musician. Dylan values building emotional connections with his collaborators and their work as these relationships are the key to creating his engaging scores.

Dylan channeled his inner John Carpenter to score the alien invasion comedy feature Snatchers (dir. John Kingman), which premiered at the Brooklyn Film Festival. He recently scored the documentary Tic Talk: Time to Heal (dir. Maria Florencia Smith) which was shortlisted for the 47th Student Academy Awards, and Marked (dir. Henry Ogunjimi) which won Best Documentary at the Seattle Black Film Festival. His music for A Dance in the Dark (dir. Paloma Amadei) won Best Original Score at the ESRA Film Festival. He is the composer for New York City hidden history podcast City Between and modern dance podcast Pod De Deux.

Dylan started piano lessons at age three but begged his mom to switch to drums at ten. They eventually reached a compromise where he agreed to study both. He spent nearly a decade in a cramped tour van traveling the world playing drums and keyboard for artists such as Daniel Hart, John Davis, Batterie-en-Valise, Bombadil, David Karsten Daniels, Le Big Zero, and many others. Although no longer a tireless road warrior, he continues to work as an in demand session drummer. He currently plays drums for the many projects of author, composer, and futurist Michael Hearst.

Dylan holds a Bachelor of Music in Percussion Performance from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master of Music in Screen Scoring from New York University where he studied composition with Mike Patterson, Irwin Fisch, and Chris Hajian.

Dylan lives in Metuchen, NJ where he enjoys spending time with his wife Marta and sons Jasper and Theo. He is an avid Texas Hold'em player but is not quite as good as he thinks he is. Despite his complete lack of jumping ability he is a committed superfan of NBA and college basketball, especially the University of North Carolina Tar Heels.

Get in touch at dylansthurston@gmail.com.

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