Babcock began studying with Swiss-American classical composer Paul Glass in 1971 and won the Young Musicians Foundation composition prize in 1976 for his "Music for String Orchestra," performed at UCLA's Royce Hall under the baton of Calvin Simmons. His studies with Glass led to further study with film composer Hugo Friedhofer and television composer Earle Hagen later in the 1970s and early 1980s. Hagen opened the door for Babcock to work in television, initially orchestrating Hagen's jazzy scores for the
Mike Hammer movies
Murder Me, Murder You (1983) and
More Than Murder (1984), then writing additional music for the follow-up series ''
Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer''. Beginning in the fall of 1987, Babcock composed complete musical scores for TV mystery and detective series. Over the next decade, he scored approximately 90 hour-long episodes of the
Andy Griffith canny-Southern-lawyer series
Matlock (1986-1995),
Tom Bosley's crime-solving-priest
Father Dowling Mysteries (1990-1991), and
Angela Lansbury's author-as-sleuth series
Murder, She Wrote (1992-1996). His
Murder, She Wrote scores often included evocations of the various locales that character Jessica Fletcher visited in later seasons (including Ireland, Africa, Hong Kong, Italy and Australia). His very first score for the series, "The Wind Around the Tower", was the first to be Emmy-nominated since composer John Addison won for the pilot score. His Emmy-winning score for
Matlock was for "The Strangler," a sixth-season serial-killer story. His Emmy-nominated
Father Dowling score (the only Emmy attention of any kind for the series) was for "The Consulting Detective," a Sherlock Holmes story that featured solo violin, alluding to Holmes' musical hobby. Babcock also began scoring two-hour television films during this period (including three in NBC's
Moment of Truth series) Other television series work included
MacGyver,
Jake and the Fatman,
Diagnosis: Murder,
Falcon Crest,
Island Son, and
Guns of Paradise. He also worked in animation, scoring two seasons of
The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper during 1997–98. Major film composers became aware of Babcock's reputation and began hiring him as orchestrator and additional-music composer for such high-profile studio films such as the first two
Die Hard films, the four
Lethal Weapon films,
Spider-Man 3,
Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves,
Final Destination,
Final Destination 2, and
King Kong. Included were "Irrational Exuberance," written for the unusual combination of alto saxophone, cello and piano; and a cello sonata, "Imagined / Remembered." His "Be Still," a choral setting of Psalm 46:10, recorded by The Crossing, is a meditation on eight words from Scripture, while "This Is What I Know," based on poems by American writer
Dorothy Parker, also earned praise. His performance "Alternative Facts" for solo piano, recorded by Gloria Cheng, made a political statement about democracy. Babcock's "Nevertheless," for violin, cello and piano, was debuted by Trio Casals at New York's Carnegie Hall in 2023. Dedicated to women "who have shown great perseverance and carried on despite a global pandemic, a violent political insurrection, a war in Ukraine and multiple mass shootings, not to mention attacks on women's healthcare and voting rights," it too earned acclaim. Pianist
Anna Kislitsyna premiered "Time and Again," Babcock's four-movement piano sonata, at Carnegie Hall in June 2022. Another at a major venue was Babcock's "Of Two Minds," for violin and bassoon, performed at Washington's Kennedy Center in July 2022. Babcock's own heritage as the son and grandson of astronomers has found expression in additional works: "Event Horizon", a work for large orchestra the composer calls "a brief ode to the mysteries of the universe" written in 2005; "Watcher of the Sky", a three-movement string quartet that celebrated the sesquicentennial of the birth of astrophysicist George E. Hale, premiered in 2018 inside the dome at California's Mount Wilson Observatory; "Give Me Your Stars", for soprano and string quartet, also from 2018; and 2019's "Promethean Fire", for soprano Hila Plitmann, violin and harp, also inspired by Hale, who founded the Wilson Observatory. Babcock served as secretary-treasurer of the Society of Composers & Lyricists from 1993 to 1996. He donated his scores to The Film Music Society in 2014 and they now reside at his alma mater, California State University at Northridge. == Awards and nominations ==