Robert Duncan is a composer for films and television series. His recent project “The Night Agent” broke records, logging 627 million hours of viewing in the first 28 days, holding the number one spot on Netflix’s weekly top-ten trending tv titles for a month, earning one of the fastest renewals in Netflix history and ultimately taking spot number five on Netflix’s list of the most popular English-language series of all time. Another of his series, “S.W.A.T.” peaked at number one on the weekly top ten TV series in the U.S. in 2023. In other work, the theme he composed for the FX series “Terriers,” which featured his vocals and multi-instrumental performances, received praise from critics from Rolling Stone Magazine, who listed it as one of “The 100 Greatest TV Theme Songs of All Time” to The Onion A.V. Club, who awarded it the “Best Theme Song F*cking Ever – Non-Hawaii Five-O Division.”
He has received four Emmy nominations for his work, one for the theme to the Steven Spielberg-produced supernatural thriller “The Whispers,” and three in the category of Outstanding Music Composition for a Series for the scores to “Castle,” “Missing” and “Last Resort.” The latter, a sweeping action thriller about the crew of a U.S. nuclear submarine who become fugitives after refusing to fire their nuclear missiles, got attention for its score in Variety magazine. The article described how Duncan, seeking to create a unique musical identity for the series, boarded a decommissioned Cold War-era submarine with a sound engineer and recorded experimental sounds to utilize within the score, essentially using the vessel as a giant percussion instrument.
Other projects include the Queen Latifah-starrer “The Equalizer,” cult-hit “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and military action drama “The Unit” for 20th Century Fox and the epic time travel fantasy series “Timeless” for NBC.
Fluent in many genres, Duncan’s work has been performed by a diverse range of artists from Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan to Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops.
Duncan was born in Toronto and resides in Los Angeles. He is represented by The Gorfaine/Schwartz Agency.