Score for The Season wins in Park City

This year I got to the Park City well after the opening of the Sundance festival and consequently missed the run of the Park City Film Music Festival. But The Season played in the latter festival, and it was a pleasant surprise to learn last week that its score picked up a Gold Medal/Audience Choice award.

Sundance Composers Lab in Gramophone magazine

Vivien Schweitzer interviewed the Composer Fellows during the Lab; her story appears in the December 2008 issue of Gramophone.

Music on the Mountain

I've written a little about my experience at the Sundance Labs for the Sundance Institute Newsletter. Read it here.

Sundance Composers Lab

I've just returned from 18 days at the Sundance Institute's Composers Lab. It was an intense and transformative experience — all I can offer here is the briefest synopsis.
     The Composer Fellows, six in all, were encamped at the Sundance Resort, about an hour outside of Salt Lake City. We were each given a trailer with a Mac, a keyboard & loads of samples — and were soon at work scoring cues. The first week was devoted to "warm-ups": we wrote music for three scenes from previously-released films and got feedback from the composers who'd originally scored them — including Carter Burwell (Fargo), Alex Wurman (March of the Penguins) and the Lab's director, Peter Golub (The Great Debaters). Composer George S. Clinton (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee) also coached us, and we worked with two exceptional visiting musicians, Maya Beiser (cello) and Steven Schick (percussion). During the second week, we were paired with directors from the Sundance Directors Lab. I worked with Frank Budgen, an experienced advertising director who had filmed scenes from his screen adaptation of Shockheaded Peter, the popular cabaret-style musical originally created by The Tiger Lillies. Penka Kouneva and Tyler Bates (300, Devil's Rejects) — both alumni of the Lab — were with us that week. During the third week, we collaborated with documentary filmmakers. Our mentors included composer Miriam Cutler (Lost in La Mancha, Thin), filmmakers Francis Reid (The Times of Harvey Milk) and James Longley (Iraq in Fragments) as well as the Documentary Lab's director, Cara Mertes. I had the privilege of working with director Christopher Wong and editor Zebediah Smith on scenes from their film Whatever It Takes [website] an inspiring documentary about the first year of the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics. Composer Chris Young (Spider-Man 3) visited while we were at work on the doc films; he met with each of us one-on-one, critiquing cues and offering invaluable career advice.
    No space to go into the great discussions we had with a number of other visitors, including music editor Adam Smalley, agent Robert Messinger, music supervisor Tracy McKnight and Doug Frank, president of music operations at Warner Pictures.
    My fellow composers provided a most remarkable backdrop for all of these activities. We came from different backgrounds and had a fantastic time sharing cues, ideas, even instruments. I'm looking forward to future collaborations with them: Matt Cartsonis, Todd Griffin, iZLER, J J Lee and Vivek Maddala.

Tyler Bates, Frank Budgen and I in the brilliant Utah sunshine.

Concertino for Piano and Percussion

During the spring — and mostly on trips to San Francisco — I worked on a piece for piano and percussion. Somewhat Stravinskyian, with a jazz-influenced middle section. It was an entry for the annual Percussive Arts Society Percussion Composition Contest (www.pas.org), and I've just received word that it took first prize in the category "Soloist with Percussion Ensemble." Of course, you never really finish a piece until someone threatens to play it. And since that appears to be an imminent possibility, the score is out on the table and it's starting to get covered with red ink... The work runs about 8 minutes; you can find an excerpt from the sampled mockup in the player on the right.

Going to Sundance

I'm delighted and honored to have been selected to participate in the Sundance Film Composers Lab in July and early August. I'll be working with one of the emerging filmmakers from the Institute's Feature Film or Documentary Film Programs, and getting coaching from some of the industry's finest composers. More information about the program is available at sundance.org: Select Film Music from the Explore Programs menu.

Score for The Season

I've finished...or mostly finished...the score for Adam Brook's horror feature, The Season, which will likely have its festival premiere in the Fall. There's a rough mix of the opening credits in the playlist to the right. Further info about the film at www.theseasonthemovie.com.