While beginning his career in the Sound Department at LucasArts, Land needed someone to compose and implement music into his second project, ''
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge,'' and McConnell stepped in. McConnell and Land co-invented
iMUSE, LucasArts' patented interactive music system. During his time at LucasArts, McConnell composed many soundtracks for games such as those in the
Monkey Island,
Indiana Jones, and
Star Wars series. Notable titles from this time include
Grim Fandango, scored with unique Mexican-influenced jazz, klezmer and traditional film score style, and
Full Throttle, featuring a rock soundtrack, which McConnell scored with rock group
The Gone Jackals. While composing music for these two games, McConnell worked closely with
Tim Schafer, who later hired him to compose scores for
Psychonauts,
Brütal Legend, and
Costume Quest for his company
Double Fine Productions. McConnell left LucasArts in 2000 but contributed to
Escape from Monkey Island and the special edition of
The Secret of Monkey Island. Since then, McConnell has composed scores for
Psychonauts,
Sly 2: Band of Thieves,
Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves (about which McConnell says he was influenced by
Henry Mancini's works), and
Kinectimals. McConnell is one of the founding members of G.A.N.G.,
the Game Audio Network Guild. He is also a known live-action music performer, playing the
electric violin. In 2013, McConnell returned to the
Sly Cooper franchise to score the fourth game,
Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, released in February of that year. The Nashville Music Scoring Orchestra performed the score. Also, for the first time ever, McConnell's entire score was released on
iTunes to accompany the game's release. McConnell worked on the Double Fine titles
Broken Age and the remastered version of
Grim Fandango, both of which include performances by the
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. He scored the 2021
Psychonauts 2, for which he was nominated for a
BAFTA Games Award and a
D.I.C.E. Award. He also wrote music for the 2020 film
Intersect. == Personal life ==