By Lynn SHER

Teri Lynne Madsen, commonly known as Maddie, is a La Crescenta-based musician, music supervisor, composer and producer. She owns Current Music, a boutique music licensing and production house that also scores music for films, television, and marketing campaigns. She founded the company in 2013 and has since amassed numerous credits, having created original music for shows like Chicago Med and programs on CBS, NBC, Netflix and Peacock.

Originally from Salt Lake City, Utah, Madsen began playing the piano at 5 years old at the behest of her mother and penned her first song at 7. Throughout high school and college she focused on playing jazz and classical music, though she’s always loved progressive rock and metal. She was awarded two scholarships to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston from which she graduated in 1989 with a BA in music synthesis. That same year she left Boston for San Francisco to pursue her music career.

Madsen got her start at an audio post-production house answering phones, making coffee and “doing all those kind of things that you do to get your toe in the door,” she said.

It was here she was introduced to music licensing and composing, though at the time she was more interested in playing in bands. In 1995 she moved to Hollywood where she continued her work in music licensing, composing and playing until she literally stumbled into La Crescenta in late 2003.

“Nobody knows about (this town),” she said. “I didn’t know about it. I was working in Pasadena … and I kind of got lost off the freeway. I ended up having Taco Tuesday at El Charro!”

As fate would have it she was looking to buy a house, so she called her realtor and told her to start looking in the La Crescenta area. She did find a house in the Crescenta Valley and has been a resident since 2004.

Madsen was recently commissioned to produce the theme song package for the NBC News NOW program “Stay Tuned Now with Gadi Schwarz.” She searched locally for musicians to hire and, for this project, she worked with La Crescenta locals Matthew Sikora and Elizabeth Forde. This is the third news package they’ve worked on together.

Current Music has produced over 30 theme song packages that are streaming or airing on television. Each one includes not only a theme song but also all the other music for the program – a “sonic toolkit” to pull from. There are variations of the theme in different moods, styles, tempos and lengths. For “Stay Tuned With Gadi Schwartz,” breaking news is urgent and up tempo whereas pop culture stories are lighter and fun and for solemn stories there is a sad and tragic version. The main theme has strong “house music” vibes, like something heard in a club but with an underlying feeling of urgency.

To get to know Gadi Schwartz and what kind of music he might like for the show, Madsen said she “social media stalked him,” finding his show “Stay Tuned” on Snapchat where she was introduced to his on-camera style and music proclivities.

“I have become a fan of Gadi’s,” she said. “He’s a good journalist who is also fun and engages a younger audience. One of the things he wanted incorporated into the theme song was break-beat and a very high-energy, modern, fun vibe – not your usual news theme song.”

Current Music is keeping Madsen so busy that she isn’t currently in a band though she does try to “jam” with musicians in the area when time allows. She’s presently working on hard rock music for Fox Sports where she hired the guitar player from Worlds Apart, a band she played with in her early Hollywood days, and Bally Sports Network has recently hired her to create music in the orchestral and hip hop genres. She’s also preparing to work as music supervisor for the feature length documentary about famous photographer Barbara Van Cleve. Local talent Aram Mandossian will be composing music for the film.