This is the story of the game-changing collaboration between director Alfred Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann, who channeled their inner fears and desires into films that would become the nightmarish soundtracks of our lives.

Steven C. Smith's new book Hitchcock & Herrmann: The Friendship & Film Scores that Changed Cinema is out now (published October 2025).

Saturday, 6 December 2025
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Bios

Steven C. Smith

Steven C. Smith is an Emmy-nominated documentary producer, author, and speaker who specializes in Hollywood history and profiles of contemporary filmmakers.

A four-time Emmy nominee and sixteen-time Telly Award winner, Steven has produced and written over 200 documentaries. They include The Sound of a City: Julie Andrews Returns to Salzburg; The Lure of the Desert: Martin Scorsese on Lawrence of Arabia; A Place for Us: West Side Story’s Legacy; and Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood.

He is the author of three acclaimed books: Hitchcock and Herrmann: The Friendship & Film Scores That Changed Cinema (Oxford), Music by Max Steiner: The Epic Life of Hollywood’s Most Influential Composer(Oxford), and A Heart at Fire’s Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann (UC Press). He has twice won the ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor Award, and the Herrmann biography was the main research source for the Academy Award-nominated documentary Music for the Movies: Bernard Herrmann.

William T. Stromberg

Grammy-nominated conductor William Stromberg has composed and conducted many scores for film and television, including the documentary Trinity and Beyond, Starship Troopers 2, Tales of Frankenstein, Steven Spielberg's Tiny Toon Adventures and Batman: The Animated Series.

William has also been heavily involved in performing classic film music, conducting scores by such composers as Max Steiner, Bernard Herrmann, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. In 2007, Bill, his wife Anna Bonn, and dear friend John Morgan formed Tribute Film Classics, a record label with the mission to record deserved scores in complete renditions. William has been collaborating with Intrada Records to conduct the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in scores by Jerry Goldsmith, Dimitri Tiomkin, Frank Skinner and others.

He is currently composing the score for the documentary Hitchcock/Herrmann and The Scores That Changed Hollywood.

William V. Malpede

Composer William V. Malpede holds a Graduate Certificate in Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television from the University of Southern California, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Business from Elmhurst College, Illinois, where he began arranging and composing for the award-winning Elmhurst College Concert Choir, Jazz Band, and vocal jazz ensemble, Late Night Blues. After touring as principle keyboardist with Cats, Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (starring Donny Osmond), and Music Of The Night (starring Melissa Manchester and Betty Buckley), William settled in Los Angeles.

Film scoring, orchestration, and production credits in film and television include Angels Don't Sleep Here, Another Harvest Moon, Runaway Jury, Spiderman 3, Brokeback Mountain, Rango, and original co-written songs for Disney Junior's Quiet Is and Lucky Duck: A Tub Toy Tale.

Mr. Malpede was awarded a Residency Grant for composition from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation (2015); and his award-winning choral works have been performed by VocalEssence, The L.A. Choral Lab, the Elmhurst University Chamber Chorale, the Glendale College Concert Singers.

In 2021, Mr. Malpede scored the critically-acclaimed short Still Here and was awarded with the Music Unites the World/Education Through Music LA best song, The Light is the Same. Currently serving as lecturer of Music in Film at CalState University, Northridge, William has most recently completed orchestration/additional music for two international feature films: Schellen Ursli (film with live orchestra) and Tatti: Land Of Dreams.