Music supervisor Jen Ross has left her stamp on some of the highest-profile music driven television series to air, including the hit NBC musical comedy series Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist for Austin Winsberg, National Geographic’s biopic drama series about the Queen Of Soul Genius: Aretha, the music-centric Fox hit Empire (created by the Oscar-nominated team behind The Butler, and produced by Brian Grazer) about the royal world of hip-hop, the STARZ drama series, Power and the Netflix / Annapurna musical TV series, Soundtrack, created by Joshua Safran. Jen is also responsible for the Netflix original animated music series We The People, produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, Chris Nee, and Kenya Barris, the NBC music driven drama Ordinary Joe, and the new Peacock original Bel-Air. Up next for Jen is the feature film Purple Hearts, starring Sofia Carson for directors Elizabeth Ellen Rosenbaum and Ben Lewin for Netflix.
Ross has sculpted the sound on the hit ABC / Marvel series Agent Carter, a period show that combines post-war mood and comic book adventure into one stylish package, as well as the FBI thriller Quantico (starring Priyanka Chopra). Additionally, she supervised the first two seasons of Star for Lee Daniels (starring Queen Latifah and Benjamin Bratt) and Kevin Probably Saves the World (starring Jason Ritter). She also lent her talents to the music-powered series by NBC, Smash, starring Megan Hilty, Debra Messing, Katharine McPhee and Anjelica Huston. Her impressive CV also includes the Emmy-winning Showtime anthology Master of Horror (where she worked with veteran genre directors like John Carpenter and John Landis), the E! reality series Dr. 90210 about plastic surgeons, the sexy CBS crime drama Reckless, season 1 of the Netflix original series Grace and Frankie (starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Martin Sheen), and the Cartoon Network show about videogames-come-to-life, Level Up.
Her big screen work includes the Disney family films Sky High and Ice Princesses, the Adam Carolla comedy The Hammer, the Wayans Brothers film White Chicks, and Catherine Hardwicke’s romance Miss You Already, starring Drew Barrymore & Toni Collette, Transylvania, and Isabell Dances in the Spotlight.
Ross is a Los Angeles native who grew up around the entertainment industry, and soaked up the power of music and movies during her early years (particularly in John Hughes’ influential, soundtrack-fueled films). She started out in the music industry on the label side, working with Grammy-winning artists like Rufus Wainwright and Nelly Furtado. She was slowly drawn towards the magic alchemy of mixing music into movies, and charted a path to where she is today.
“The power of music is undeniable,” Ross says. “To be able to play with the dynamics of something that has no boundaries is a blessing. And working with various genres, as well as different tonal landscapes, is almost like getting to travel. Each show and scene is a different experience than the next.”