Steve Pardo studied jazz saxophone at the Frost School of Music in the early 2000’s and went on to earn a master’s in Studio Jazz Writing. But instead of club gigs and orchestrating big bands, he has built a thriving career composing and arranging for video games. He started soon after graduation with the company that created the hugely popular music games Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and has most recently continued with Fortnite Festival, from Epic Games, the multi-billion-dollar company behind Fortnite, one of the world’s most popular video game platforms.
“You couldn’t have planned a curriculum to give me that first job,” said Pardo from Nashville, Tennessee, where he lives with his wife, a flutist and fellow Frost School graduate, and their two children. “There was not a video game music or sound design course anywhere. But the skills I learned at the Frost School absolutely set me up to be a high-output music creator and designer. I’m still using those skills daily.”
He’s not the only one. Pardo, 42, has recruited multiple Frost School alumni to work with him in a massive entertainment sector estimated to earn $200 billion annually. And while he enjoys mentoring fellow graduates, Pardo is motivated primarily by the knowledge that they have the abilities, talent, and work ethic to succeed in a demanding and shifting field.
“The reason I love to work with alums from the Frost School of Music is that we all share this skill set and want to hit the same quality bar,” said Pardo. “There’s a shared vocabulary I don’t take for granted.”
The Frost School’s storied jazz program is famous for fostering creative, innovative artists like Pat Metheny and Emmet Cohen. But Pardo is an exemplar of a less well-known aspect of the department as a whole, and the Studio Jazz Writing program in particular: a focus on technology as part of the program’s DNA, where production, arranging, and other non-performance skills are just as essential as the ability to compose and play.
“Since its inception, the jazz department was forward-looking in its use of technology and the idea that jazz is not only music for concert halls and performing venues but also for studios,” said Steve Guerra, an assistant professor who took over as director of the Jazz Writing program in 2020 from Gary Lindsay, who led it for 40 years. “Gary Lindsay designed the Jazz Writing program as one of the few master’s programs in jazz composition that focuses heavily on orchestrating, technology, and film scoring. Our graduates have the skills to work in an amazing range of musical fields, from playing with incredible jazz artists like Samara Joy to composing for Fortnite.”
Although Pardo started by studying saxophone, he’s a lifelong gamer who’s always been drawn to technology. He remembers being mesmerized by watching his uncle play Metroid, a 1980s Nintendo game, when he was just four years old. “It’s etched in my memory,” he said. “I was captivated by the art and the music. So the idea of being a video game composer was a dream job.”
At the Frost School, he learned film scoring, orchestration, and composition for everything from orchestras to jazz vocal ensembles, while forming strong bonds with fellow students. “Gary Lindsay’s curriculum wasn’t limited to jazz big band writing,” said Pardo, who got his bachelor’s in 2006 and his master’s in 2008. “The impetus was to get people into the broader world of music production.”
Less than a year after Pardo graduated, his brother, an opera and jazz singer, brought his sibling in to work on a new game for Harmonix, the studio behind Guitar Hero and Rock Band, which, at their peak from the mid-2000’s to the 2010’s, were a music and gaming phenomenon. “They’re humungous, culture-defining games that shaped a generation of young musicians,” said Pardo. “I was giving guitar lessons to kids who wanted to learn because of Guitar Hero.” As an added thrill, the new game was based on the Beatles, his favorite band.
Not knowing the programs behind the games was no barrier, Pardo said. “There was no expectation that I would know how to use those tools,” he said. “I could learn them on the job. They are thinking about who can solve these problems. I had a background in music theory, I had made records, I knew MIDI, I could arrange, I could do sound design, I could compose.”
In 2014, Pardo joined some Harmonix colleagues and his brother to form their own company, SkewSound, creating original music for video game genres from fantasy to sci-fi to horror, and eventually TV and film, working frequently for Netflix and the Adult Swim network. Pardo left Harmonix in 2018. Along the way, a trumpet player he’d played with at the Frost School connected Pardo to another alum, Justin Trout, who’d also been a jazz saxophone major and earned a master’s in Studio Jazz Writing.
“I was like, 'Are you my doppelganger?'” said Pardo. They began working together, and in 2023, Pardo’s old boss at Harmonix, now owned by Epic Games, asked if Pardo had a team to work on a new music game, Fortnite Festival. Pardo turned to Trout, who introduced him to three 2021 Jazz Writing graduates—Seth Crail, Spencer Clarke, and Eli Feingold. They clicked immediately.
“We’re all on the same page with music, we have the same skills,” said Pardo. “Let’s work together!”
Their shared sensibilities and skills were crucial to Fortnite Festival, particularly in a mode called Jam Stage, where players can combine elements from different songs and artists. “Say you have the vocals from the Rolling Stones’ 'Satisfaction' on top of drums from a Billie Eilish song,” said Pardo. “You can mix these elements as if you’re a DJ. It’s the magic that Harmonix made famous in other games. Nobody else does this.”
“Frost School students have the music theory knowledge to take these elements apart and make them work together. We share a production sensibility and the expectation of delivering the highest quality. I don’t take any of that for granted. I am so grateful to work with these alumni.”
Guerra says the connection Pardo has made with younger graduates is typical of the Jazz Writing program. “Our program has a really great network of support,” he said. “Older alums are eager to help younger alums because they know the values and the skills they learned in the program. It is Frost School's ability to become someone who can fill a lot of roles really well.”
Since Fortnite Festival was released, Pardo has continued working with his fellow alumni, who have built thriving, multi-faceted careers. Feingold works as an arranger and (with several other Frost School alums) plays trombone with GRAMMY-winning jazz singer Samara Joy. Crail is busy composing and orchestrating for film and television in Los Angeles. John Estes, yet another Frost School alum and fellow Nashville resident, is on the Fortnite team and is working with Pardo and Trout on a new project for Netflix.
“What would I do without this connection to the Frost School? I owe so much to this program, to those faculty, to this trajectory,” said Pardo. “I’m not only able to grow my career with these students but their careers. It’s been one of the biggest joys of my life to have this very clear path from Frost to my career and to these collaborations.”
