St John & Plahuta
The Music Maestros
Stewart St John and Michael Plahuta are the composing and songwriting team behind the theme songs and scores of some of the most popular, award-winning audio series, including Tara Tremendous, Origins Unknown, Spooky Troop, Tremendous Boy, The Dr. Epicopolis & 1102’s Show of Shows and more. As composers they also perform and produce their own material.
St John & Plahuta most recently composed 14 pop songs for St John’s Tara Tremendous live-action musical feature, currently in development with Tony award-winning, Oscar® nominated producer Marc Platt and his company Marc Platt Productions.
They also composed 20 original songs for the Tara Tremendous live musical concert which was performed off-Broadway at Feinstein’s/54 Below in NYC starring Micky Dolenz (The Monkees), Annie Golden (Netflix’ Orange Is The New Black), Mary Stout (Broadway’s Beauty & The Beast), Bart Shatto (Broadway’s War Paint), Brian Charles Rooney, MiMi Ryder (Matilda The Musical) among other prominent Broadway names. The concert performance earned a standing ovation and a subsequent workshop was performed in Alabama featuring Eve Plumb (The Brady Bunch) and Maxwell Caulfield (Grease 2).
Their partnership is unique in that they are both musical composers in their own right, though both of them initially pursued different career paths:
St John began his career as a screenwriter, producer and director (which he continues today), writing on some of the most beloved children and family TV series and movies seen around the world, including Sabrina: The Animated Series, Marvel’s The Incredible Hulk and his original family feature Disney’s Seventeen Again.
Plahuta, from Australia, became a successful attorney working at one of the biggest firms in Melbourne.
But music was always part of their journey: St John won a Philharmonic Original Music Competition when he was in grade school for his original composition, and later wrote songs for the FOX KIDS series Tom & Jerry Kids, which he was also a screenwriter on. He also scored and produced 13 albums of original music for the Sara audiobook series based on Jerry & Esther Hicks’ #1 best-selling Sara And The Foreverness of Friends Of A Feather book series released by Hay House.
Meanwhile, Plahuta was composing and producing music throughout his time in law school.
Their passion for music finally brought them together in 2015 when they collaborated on their first project, and they haven’t stopped since.
St John & Plahuta are now firmly positioned as a composing and songwriting duo. St John composes the melody and writes the lyrics, then both he and Plahuta work together to compose the music and build the song together.
Both St John & Plahuta take a hands on approach and produce each song from beginning to end. They approach composing instrumental scores the very same way.