Paul Cantelon

Paul Cantelon (b. 1965 in Glendale, California) is an American composer of film soundtracks and contemporary classical music. He is a founding member of the American alternative band Wild Colonials, in which he plays violin, piano, and accordion. Since the 1990s, he has also recorded and performed with a diverse range of artists including Yo Yo Ma, Joe Cocker, The Kinks, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, George Clinton, Rickie Lee Jones, King Crimson, Everclear, and Ry Cooder.

He is a founding member of the American alternative band Wild Colonials, in which he plays violin, piano, and accordion. Since the 1990s, he has also recorded and performed with a diverse range of artists including Yo Yo Ma, Joe Cocker, The Kinks, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, George Clinton, Rickie Lee Jones, King Crimson, Everclear, and Ry Cooder.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, he played piano in a jazz-inflected group that also featured Lili Haydn on violin, Martin Tillman on cello, and satnam singh ramgotra on tablas. They released a self-titled CD under the name Luciana's wish. In 2000, under the name Tryptich, they released an EP of cover songs called Curio, with vocals by Angela McCluskey.

Cantelon wrote vibrant film scores for the two literary adaptations, "Everything is Illuminated" and "The Diving Bell & The Butterfly." He was chosen because he had to relearn music after a terrible accident left him with amnesia. He had been a prodigious, promising composer beforehand, and had to learn everything again. His personal history fit with the themes of the films, of searching for one's past.