Dan Slider grew up on the south side of Chicago. His father was a music
teacher, directing bands from the junior high thru high school levels.
While in high school, Dan played trumpet with the Chicago Youth
Symphony Orchestra, and also performed locally with his own band. After
graduating he performed on the road with several bands before heading
out to Boston to attend the Berklee College of Music where he studied
trumpet and big band arranging. While at Berklee, Dan played jazz
trumpet in the prestigious Phil Wilson Dues Band. After his stint in
Boston, he moved out west at the urgings of his close friend, bassist
(now guitarist/composer) Dann Glenn. The two recorded a jazz-fusion
album together in 1984 titled, "A Whispered Warning" (ITI/Allegiance
Records). The LP received steady airplay on jazz radio, and was
repeatedly licensed to television shows such as the 1984 Winter
Olympics.
In the mid 80's Dan began to study film scoring/orchestration privately
with renowned composer/orchestrator Dr. Albert Harris in Van Nuys, CA.
Dr. Harris was a Pulitzer prize winning composer/ arranger who formed
Music Service Inc. with Nelson Riddle. He was also best known for his
music direction for Barbara Streisand on the "Barbara and Other
Instruments" television special on CBS. and many Quinn Martin
Television series Dan studied for 2 years with Dr. Harris, while
concurrently studying with Don Ray at UCLA. He also studied arranging
with Billy Byers (Frank Sinatra) at his Malibu home.
After completing his studies, Dan started as a music supervisor at The
Studio Music Dept. Here, he supervised the scoring of several movie of
the weeks and features. He worked on "Fatal Vision" for NBC
Productions, and began to score source music for many of the projects
the company brought in, such as "Unnatural Causes" starring John
Ritter. It was during this time that he scored the TV series "Fast
Copy" for NBC and wrote the new theme song for the syndicated version
of "Your Show Of Shows". Next up was the theme song for the "Cyrstal
Light National Aerobic Championships". This theme is still used today
for many international events. Dan has scored over 1000 hours of
prime-time network television programming to date.