Darin Goulet is a Los Angeles based pianist, composer and music director.

His latest project is the new rock musical AGING OUT, which was given a development staging at UC Irvine in September 2009.

He is currently writing incidental music for a 2010 production of a straight play Off-Broadway, writing new songs with wife and collaborator Tara Redepenning, and working on an album.

Darin grew up in the musically illustrious Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park, where he demanded (and got) piano lessons at age 5. A few years later he lost patience with his teachers & gave up the lessons, but kept right on playing, making up his own pieces and reading through tune after tune from the Great American Songbook along with Bach, Haydn and the rest. Becoming largely self-taught at the piano led to an ongoing obsession with self-teaching at any other instrument he can get hold of, including (but not limited to) the guitar, ukelele, harmonica, clarinet, recorder, violin, drumset and this strange new instrument they call a “laptop computer.”

Darin began improvising music for comedy shows at ComedySportz Minneapolis while still in high school, where he had to learn how to compose miniature operas and film scores on the spot. His connection with ComedySportz followed him to LA where he joined the company for six years.

Darin studied Music and English at Harvard University, performing and/or arranging for the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, Harvard University Choir, and the a cappella group the Harvard Opportunes. (An early song, “Me and Mrs. Claus,” co-written with Michael Heinrich, can be found on their album The Hours of Celebration.) Darin’s senior thesis was an utter mess of a musical called Not Much Fun: Adapted From Dorothy Parker. A year later, with help from his now-permanent collaborator (and amazing wife) Tara Redepenning, he was able to turn it into a more watchable show called The Waltz, which was performed in Minneapolis and later given a reading at Theater Building Chicago.

“Tara and Darin” as a writing & directing team was born at Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica, where Darin was working as choral accompanist. “You write music,” director Jeffe Huls said one day. “Do you want to write a musical for the choir?” Either a taste for adventure or a bout of dementia (or both) led to Tara writing a script, choreographing and directing The Music Assignment for a cast of 20 and a chorus of 200+ (with score and musical direction from Darin). Once having proved that they could write and produce a musical from scratch in a matter of months, T&D found themselves needing to do it over and over again, creating such unusual, occasionally daft and very-sophisticated-for-middle-school pieces of musical theatre as West Wing, Jr!, Your Friend In Hollywood, and Video Girl. Since 2002 they have written at least one new musical every year (though they are no longer writing solely for middle school students).

Darin has also composed several choral arrangements, including The Road Goes Ever On, which was performed by the SCVA Middle School Honor Choir in 2003, conducted by Peter Rutenberg; a dance piece, “You Can’t Make Money Tappin’,” in collaboration with dancer/choreographer Richard Kuller; and scores and sound designs for various theater and video projects.

Darin’s harshest critics are his 450 precocious and wonderful students of the UCLA Lab School.  Whatever else he does, he hopes he can inspire them and share the world of music with them.