It’s April 7, 2015. Don Barrett (LA’92) is standing on the 20th Century Fox Newman Scoring Stage in front of a 90-piece orchestra. At the wave of his hand, the sounds of his own compositions come pouring from the instruments. “Other than the love I have for my wife, and the experience of the existence of my two sons, it’s the best feeling I’ve ever had in my life,” Barrett says, choking up a bit as he talks about hearing his music performed. 

However, this Los Angeles composer, with a studio just blocks away from the Kodak Theatre, has no formal music training. He graduated with a degree in pre-law and writing. 

Opting out of law school, Barrett took a position as a legal editor in Indianapolis. A growing roster of private music students led him to reevaluate his career choice. “I just realized where my heart was,” Barrett says. “It really was in music. I was spending more hours outside of the job on musical endeavors.” 

At the age of 32, Barrett decided to pursue an education in film scoring through UCLA’s extension program. “I said, you know what, I’m going to save enough to pay for all of my schooling and my living expenses for a year,” Barrett says. “If I survive that and I come back to Indiana, at least I’ll have this education, and I’ll call that a success.” 

His first break came within an extraordinary time frame: one month. “I got very lucky. I became friends with a music editor on the show Touched by an Angel,” Barrett says. “Within a couple months, I was doing some ghostwriting for the show. I used to think, appreciate this now because you don’t just move to Hollywood and start scoring a top ten TV show.” 

A year and a half later, a professor at UCLA recommended him for an apprenticeship with Ron Jones — a composer well known for his work on Family Guy and Star Trek: The Next Generation. He worked side by side with Jones for nine years orchestrating music for Family Guy. Barrett hopes to one day find himself composing for a Pixar or DreamWorks animated feature. 

“I think that I’ve become a really solid composer,” Barrett says. “Someone once said that I’m just flying under the radar. I consider myself ready for the highest level now after all these years of training, studying, and making mistakes. The career-defining break hasn’t really happened yet, but I’m grateful to still be in the game.”