Composer
Mahlon’s upcoming symphonic work, Grace, is a World Premiere — Commissioned by the Johns Creek Symphony Orchestra and Supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts; the music serves as the score for a new ballet by Full Radius Dance.
Featured in Vogue, Mahlon's work has been recognized by the Los Angeles Film Awards for Sacrifice.
Composer of the video game Beat the Fed, available on Steam. An interactive AP Economics game designed by Michael McCormick (SimCity 4, Minecraft: Story Mode, The Sims: Hot Date) with original music inspired by specific eras in American history.
Lucky Alien starring Maaz Ali (American Horror Story) and Noa Athena (Best Actress Swedish International Film Festival) premiered at the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills. A collaboration with Warner Bros Creative alum Christopher Schlechte-Bond.
Early in his career, Mahlon reached the Finalist round of selection for the Sundance Music and Sound Design Lab (2017) directed by Peter Golub—advancing to the top 35 applicants from over 600 submissions.
Móðurást for cello was praised by Margrét Ann Thors, author of the new novel Freyja. Mahlon directed and composed La Mer, Best Original Score - MindField Film Festival Nov 2019, as well as Remember Me, Best Original Song nominee - Indie Short Fest Los Angeles Aug 2020. Best Original Score for Here Be Dragons directed by Benjamin Rider - Hollywood Blood Horror Festival Los Angeles.
Community
Not(e) for a Dreamer by Enrico Poli, a Baroque offering of Mahlon’s shared with composer colleague Ying Sun, Nominated for Best Music at the Los Angeles Fashion Film Festival.
Conductor and Orchestrator of Eren Önsoy's music for Naziha’s Lente on Apple TV. RuPaul's Drag Race and Million Dollar Listing—Composer’s Assistant, Additional music ABC/Disney—The Great Christmas Light Fight.
Scoring Assistant on the HBO Series — Catch And Kill: The Podcast Tapes. He also assisted on the TV series Supergirl & Legends of Tomorrow, and worked in the music department for The Walking Dead & Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with Bear McCreary—having been mentored by John Mauceri.
Together with the Berlin-based maestro, Henry Cheng, Mahlon lent his creative voice to the Running Learning Center in Seoul.
Concert Music
Artistic Director of the Universal Concert for Humanity, a global charity event featuring Grammy winning artists. Composer of Agni for violin- Finalist for the American Prize and Ouvertüre for the Klangkraft Orchestra.
Champions of Mahlon’s music include Martin James Bartlett - BBC Young Musician of the Year, renowned violinist Madalyn Parnas Möller, guitarist Tengyue Zhang, operatic soprano Natasha Day, pianist Anna Bogolubova & flautist Aleksandra Henszel, contemporary vocalist Hadar Nehemya, cellist Polina Faustova, and the revolutionary Contemporaneous Ensemble.
Arranger for the United Nations Chamber Music Society at Carnegie Hall & co-founder of The Isolation Project with choreographer Cole Companion— A Ballet response to Covid-19’s Impact on the Performing Arts.
Original Ballets for Peninsula Ballet Theatre, San Francisco International Arts Festival, choreographers Greg Amato, and Marika Brussel.
Education
Fellow of the NYU/ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop with Sean Callery & Mark Snow. 2x ASCAP Morton Gould Finalist and NYAE Emerging Composer, Mahlon is a first-place winner of the Webster University Young Composers Competition with Shulamit Ran.
Puck with Benjamien Lycke, is a contemporary opera featuring an iPhone app as a character. This unique project premiered at the Royal College of Music, where Mahlon received a Master of Composition for Screen, along with a Bachelor of Science in Composition and Philosophy from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University Bloomington.
Mahlon studied composition with Sven-David Sandström, Howard Davidson, Don Freund, and Francis Shaw. Philosophy with David McCarty, Paul Spade, Sandra Shapshay, and Kirk Ludwig. Masterclasses with Christopher Young, Larry Groupé & Roger Neill.
Pianist
A piano protégé of Oxana Yablonskaya, Anna Bogolubova, and Luba Dubinsky.
Foundations
Mahlon’s love of music stems from his Juilliard-trained violinist mother, Spring, and French horn-playing grandfather, Jack Berv, member of the NBC Symphony Orchestra with Arturo Toscanini and later the original Steve Allen Tonight Show Band.
Uncle Sam played bugle at Belmont Stakes, and Sam’s brother Irv Grossman plays Jazz trumpet on Broadway in NYC. Mahlon’s brother Jake is an evolutionary biologist, and his father Ken is an MD.
Great-uncles, Arthur and Harry, played alongside grandpa Jack in the NBC Symphony, as well as on Victory at Sea by Richard Rodgers & Robert Russell Bennett. The Conn 8D French horn—an instrument the Berv brothers helped design in 1938—was played by Los Angeles session musician Vincent DeRosa and influenced the signature sound of Star Trek: The Original Series.
According to family lore, for their work as design consultants, the brothers were offered either a royalty on every horn sold, or two brand-new Conn 8Ds. They each took two horns.
Epilogue
A practicing Theravāda Buddhist, with Ukrainian Jewish and American Irish-German ancestry, Mahlon aspires to the Hindu principle of ahimsa—non-violence and kindness.
"Bravo on such a brilliant, effective, musical composition. It is one which, I am sure, many performers and audiences will find gratifying. You have an excellent feel for the instruments for which you are writing. There is much in your music that I am very taken with: its passion, large sweep, sense of drama." Shulamit Ran, Pulitzer Prize 1991
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