Jeff Beal (born June 20, 1963) is an American composer of music for film, television, recordings, and the concert hall. Highly regarded as a jazz instrumentalist and versatile composer, Beal's music often incorporates a synthesis of improvisatory and composed elements.　　 　　Jazz career 　　Beal married a fellow Eastman graduate, soprano Joan (Sapiro) Beal, and the pair moved from Rochester to New York City. It was there Beal composed and recorded his debut album, Liberation, for Island Records. Beal's jazz band went on to perform at The Blue Note and the Montreaux Jazz Festival. At the request of Chick Corea, Beal composed and recorded a concerto for the virtuosic jazz bassist, John Patitucci, for Corea's Stretch Records label. Beal's signature work, Alternate Route, was composed for improvised trumpet and orchestra. Written fifteen years after his first long form composition, this piece was again premiered by Kent Nagano and the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, with Beal as trumpet soloist. He has also composed improvisatory concerti for Dave Samuels, Larry Coombs, and Turtle Island String Quartet. 　　Film and television composing 　　In the mid-1990s, Beal relocated to Los Angeles. His first critical notice came in 2001, for his minimalist Americana score to Ed Harris' directorial debut, Pollock. He has since been nominated for seventeen Emmy Awards, and has won five, one in 2007 for dramatic underscore to the TNT miniseries Nightmares & Dreamscapes Battleground episode, one in 2003 for his main theme to the USA Network detective series Monk, and the other for a documentary aired during the 2002 Winter Olympics entitled Peggy & Dorothy. Other Emmy nominations include HBO's evocative Depression era series, Carnivàle and epic drama Rome, as well as four nominations and two wins for Netflix's House of Cards. 　　Beal is noted for composing most of his music at his home, without assistants or orchestrators, playing most of the instruments himself. For the music from House of Cards, he added strings through recording a 17-piece string ensemble, which he invited to record in the living room of his home. 　　Later life 　　Beal has disclosed that in 2007 he was diagnosed as suffering from multiple sclerosis. Beal attributes the stabilization of the disease symptoms in part to his busy schedule and the concentration required to compose, as well as treating his MS as a vascular disease with lifestyle intervention and venoplasty treatment.