Matthew Tishler won’t soon forget March 1. Sat in the balcony at Jazz at the Lincoln Center for the fourth annual Children’s and Family Emmy Awards, the Canadian songwriter heard his name called not once but twice.
“I did not expect in a million years … to win twice, let alone once!” says the Canadian songwriter and producer on Zoom from Los Angeles. “Everyone practices their dream speech while they’re driving or in the shower but I’ve never even bothered to dream about it because I just thought it was impossible.”
Tishler won his Emmy statuettes for Outstanding Original Song for a Preschool Program for “Grow Your World” (co-written with Shridhar Solanki), which appeared in the Disney music-animated short, Rise Up, Sing Out, and Outstanding Original Song for a Children’s or Young Teen Program for “Red Christmas” (co-written with Jeannie Lurie) that appeared in Descendants: The Rise of Red.
“I never set out to do family entertainment. I’m a pop guy through and through. I studied Max Martin’s songs and David Foster, wanting to write straight-down-the-middle, universal pop anthems.”
Tishler’s success as an entertainment songwriter is driven by hard work, discipline, and some luck along the way. Growing up in Thornhill, Ont., music was a constant in Tishler’s life: his father taught music in public school and his mother loved musical theatre. The record player was always on, with everything from The Beatles to Brahms spinning on it.
Tishler discovered that a career as a songwriter was possible without having to perform. This revelation cemented his ambitions. “You mean, ‘I get to be around music, but I don’t have to be the star?’ That was a dream come true.” In his early teen years, Tishler decided to go all in on a life in music. While his schoolmates socialized, he put in the hours. “I gave up all the shenanigans in my teens and laser-focused,” he says. “By the time I was 15, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.”
Tishler, along with a couple of his artistic friends, studied the craft of songwriting. “I read every book I could get my hand on and [went] to songwriting workshops,” he says.
With hundreds of songs written by his early 20s, Tishler realized that for anyone else to hear them, he’d need to get them recorded. Still the avid learner, he got to work understanding how to mix and produce his songs to eventually send out to music supervisors.
While attending York University, he kept pursuing his songwriting path, making trips to Los Angeles, New York, and Nashville to pitch his songs. That discipline paid off: In the mid-2000s, Tishler landed his first synch with the pop-rock track, “She’s So Gone,” co-written with Shane Stevens and Maria Christensen. The song was featured in the 2011 Disney musical comedy Lemonade Mouth. “I was very lucky to meet Steven Vincent, Head of Music at Disney Channel,” Tishler says. “He had just come off [working on] Hannah Montana, High School Musical, and Camp Rock — these huge franchises that [would come to] define a generation.”
That first synch set a course for Tishler’s career for the next 15 years, finding a niche in the children’s entertainment space. “It was a total fluke,” he says.
Earning a living as a full-time songwriter and producer in Los Angeles now requires a lot of the same control and time Tishler put in during his teenage years.
“Every day, I’m working from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., if not more,” he says. “I don’t have the luxury of working when I’m inspired. I’m disciplined about the craft and learning how to access all the tools of songwriting and production, so that I can pull a hat trick when I’m not in the mood.”
Whenever an aspiring songwriter asks him for advice, Tishler’s answer is pretty simple: follow your own path.
“That sounds so obvious but, when you are starting out, a lot of writers are chasing the same thing, whether they admit it or not,” he says. “They want to have a big number one pop song and work with A-list writers. If that happens, great, but finding a pathway [in this career] that fills your soul while making a living is the greatest blessing.”
The composer is keeping busy with a number of upcoming projects, including, a song in Descendants 5 Wicked Wonderland (premiering on Disney Channel July 16); two songs in Camp Rock 3 (out on Disney + and Disney Channel this August); and producing a handful of songs for the 2026 edition of the Disney “Worlds Collide Tour.”