John Swihart is a musician, best known for composing music for movies, most notably the Napoleon Dynamite movie. This 2004 soundtrack album was the first CD release of his music. 　　From an early age Swihart learned a number of instruments, including the piano, saxophone and later guitar. He eventually became interested in original compositions. Swihart attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston. 　　His first brush with cinema came when a group of students from Emerson College asked his help with their film project. Later he was chosen to be a performer with Blue Man Group, which caused him to move from Boston to Las Vegas. Later Swihart's wife obtained a job in Los Angeles and Swihart moved there with her. In LA he started doing music for independent films. One of these was the movie Napoleon Dynamite. 　　The Napoleon Dynamite film was a hit surprise hit and Swihart was awarded a Golden Satellite Award for best original score. After this his work on music scores for film and television increased dramatically.