Peter Nelson McConnell, born on April 19, 1960, is also called Peter Mc. He is an American video game composer and musician. He is most recognized for his work with LucasArts and for creating the soundtracks for every Sly Cooper game starting with the second game.

Early life and education

McConnell was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He studied music as a student at Harvard University in the 1980s with teachers Timothy Vincent Clarke, Curt Cacioppo, and Ivan Tcherepnin. While at Harvard, McConnell became friends with Michael Land, who later worked as a composer for LucasArts and created music for many of the company's titles. McConnell also worked with Michael Land at an audio company called Lexicon.

Career

When Land began his work in the Sound Department at LucasArts, he needed someone to create and add music to his second project, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. McConnell helped with this task. Together, McConnell and Land helped create iMUSE, a special music system that LucasArts owned.

During his time at LucasArts, McConnell wrote music for many games, including those in the Monkey Island, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars series. Some important games from this time are Grim Fandango, which uses music inspired by Mexican jazz, klezmer, and traditional film scores, and Full Throttle, which features a rock soundtrack composed with the band The Gone Jackals. While working on these games, McConnell collaborated with Tim Schafer, who later hired him to create music for Psychonauts, Brütal Legend, and Costume Quest for his company, Double Fine Productions.

McConnell left LucasArts in 2000 but still helped with Escape from Monkey Island and the special edition of The Secret of Monkey Island. Later, he composed music for Psychonauts, Sly 2: Band of Thieves, Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves (McConnell said he was inspired by Henry Mancini’s work), and Kinectimals.

McConnell is one of the people who started G.A.N.G., the Game Audio Network Guild. He is also known for performing music live, using an electric violin.

In 2013, McConnell returned to the Sly Cooper series to compose music for the fourth game, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, which was released in February 2013. The Nashville Music Scoring Orchestra performed the music. For the first time, McConnell’s full score was available on iTunes when the game was released.

McConnell worked on Broken Age and the remastered version of Grim Fandango for Double Fine. Both games include music performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. He also composed the music for Psychonauts 2, released in 2021, for which he was nominated for a BAFTA Games Award and a D.I.C.E. Award. Additionally, he wrote music for the 2020 film Intersect.

Written works

• McConnell, Peter (September 1999). "Dance of the Dead: The Adventures of a Composer Creating the Game Music for Grim Fandango." Electronic Musician. 15 (9). New York: NewBay Media, LLC. Pages 30–32, 35–36, 38–40, 42. ISSN 0884-4720.
• U.S. Patent 5,315,057. Inventors: Land, Michael Z. [US]; McConnell, Peter N. [US]. Title: "Method and apparatus for dynamically composing music and sound effects using a computer entertainment system (iMUSE patent)." Assigned to LucasArts Entertainment Co. [US].