Janal Bechthold
Composer for film, television, documentaries, animation, video games and interactive visual media
Janal loves working on scores where music is “integral to the storytelling experience”
Drawn to the emotional side of musical storytelling, Janal is known for weaving playful and dark moods with intelligence and emotional maturity. She loves working on scores where music is integral to the story telling experience whether it embodies an invisible character, supports a heartfelt dramatic moment, creates a horror jump scare, or something quirky and fun. Her formal training as a music therapist gives her a heightened sense of awareness of how music conveys emotion and she skillfully seeks to immerse the audience in each story by incorporating thematic elements such as sounds from the story’s environment into the score.
Janal is a Canadian Screen Music Award-winning Composer
Janal’s music has been nominated for three Canadian Screen Awards in both film and television categories, five Canadian Screen Music Awards and a Hollywood Music in Media Award! Janal received the inaugural Canadian Screen Music Award (CASMA): Best Original Score for Interactive Media for No Reason to Apologize: The Resilient Legacy of Viola Desmond (TEACH Media) alongside co-composer La-Nai Gabriel.
She loves that in animation you can “craft a song from burps and turn the fun up to 11!”
Janal has a keen interest in animation, composing the score to the 52 episode animated series Millie Magnificent (Nelvana) and Super Wish Shorts (YTV/Discovery). She also worked as a music supervisor and song producer with credits on productions such as Hotel Transylvania: The Series (Disney/Sony), Corn and Peg (Nickelodeon) Seasons 1 & 2, The Remarkable Mr King (Teletoon), Toon Bops (Nelvana), and Barney’s World (Mattel).
As an industry leader, Janal spearheaded the research report Gender in the Canadian Screen Composing Industry
Janal is a former Vice President of the Screen Composers Guild of Canada (SCGC). She founded Toronto Women Composers and the Women Composer Advisory Council to the SCGC, served on the Board of Directors of the SOCAN Foundation, and holds membership in The Society of Composers and Lyricists (SCL), The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, and Women in Film and Television (WIFT).
As someone who has a keen sense of social responsibility, Janal strives to balance fun and entertaining with powerful and meaningful subjects
Asis Sethi’s experimental short Rock the Cradle recounts the trauma of post-partum depression; VR documentary The Choice and documentary Pandora’s Box raise awareness of issues surrounding women’s rights and access to healthcare; Asian Elephants 101 a 27-part series for NatGeo and documentary Gods in Shackles from Sangita Iyer outline the plight of India’s Asian Elephants with the latter presented as testimony to the Supreme Court of India and screened at the United Nations. These are just a few examples of meaningful stories by filmmakers striving to create change.
Other credits include Marlene (Wendy Hill-Tout, starring Kristen Booth and Greg Bryk), horror film Art of Obsession (Ryan M. Andrews) documentary Silver Screamers (Sean Cisterna), Company Town (CBC), Cottagers and Indians (CBC), co-composing Daytime Emmy Award-winning Ghostwriter (Apple TV+) Jungle Ghost 1 & 2, scoring video game Terrorarium, and interactive graphic novels, Dystopia 2153 and 80 Degrees North.