ABOUT

Didier Lean Rachou is the award winning composer of both the 16-time Emmy winning series DEADLIEST CATCH and GOLD RUSH (Discovery). In June 2022, Didier took home his 27th ASCAP Film and Television Music Award, winning a Most Performed Themes and Underscore award for the 9th year in a row. In 2017 he won the prestigious ASCAP Composers’ Choice Television Composer of the Year award, which is a peer-voted award. Didier was humbled to receive a French knighthood in 2019, being inducted into the Order of Arts and Letters.

Didier’s feature film credits include POWDER BLUE starring Academy Award-winners Forest Whitaker and Eddie Redmayne, HOW TO ROB A BANK starring Erika Christensen, MOVING McALLISTER starring Mila Kunis and MGM’s HER BEST MOVE. He has had the privilege to work with such diverse artists as Ashford & Simpson, David Johansen, McCoy Tyner, Ron Carter, Luis Bonfa, Paquito D’Rivera and members of the Pilobolus Dance Theater, amongst many others, as a composer, producer and/or engineer.

After being selected for the prestigious ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop, Didier relocated his NYC studio to a historical Hollywood Hills compound. Within months of moving to Los Angeles, he was scoring key scenes for the Golden Globe and Emmy winning series SEX AND THE CITY (HBO). In bringing his big screen sensibilities to the small screen with STORM CHASERS (Discovery), Didier has defined the sound of a television genre by scoring several of the highest rated action-adventure unscripted series on cable, from GOLD RUSH, DEADLIEST CATCH and BERING SEA GOLD (Discovery) to the Michael Bay-produced series BILLION DOLLAR WRECK (History).

Didier received a BA in Composition and Jazz Performance from the Manhattan School of Music and studied composition privately at The Juilliard School. He has been a voting member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (GRAMMY Awards) since 2000 and a voting member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (EMMY Awards) since 2012.

Raised in Europe and New York City, Didier is the son of world-renowned French chef Jean-Jacques Rachou (of La Côte Basque fame). He is married to author and culinary impresario Lucy Lean, niece of two-time Oscar winning director, David Lean. Some fun facts about Didier are that as a teen in NYC, he lived right upstairs from four-time Oscar winner Henry Mancini. During this time, he also taught guitar lessons to Julian Casablacas and Nick Valensi who went on to form The Strokes. He is a relative of the infamous Rachou couple who ran ‘The Beat Hotel’ in Paris, where the major Beat poets would live and create. Didier is also directly related to the noted French painter, Henri Rachou (1856-1944). Henri not only has a street named after him in Toulouse, but was also a friend of Toulouse-Lautrec’s and painted his portrait.

He currently resides in Los Angeles, with his lovely wife, Lucy and their two children.