With each new year, we always get a slew of “update” emails and newsletters, right? But with that said - especially as the calendar is starting to fill up already for the new year - I do find it to be a valuable exercise to take a few minutes, breathe, and chronologically catalogue the creative work of my previous twelve months. (If nothing else, it helps to remind me why I’ve been tired!) Maybe that’s why we send out these letters. On that note, here is a seasonal summary of what kept my wheels turning this last year. Happy 2015!
Winter ‘14
2014 began with a whirlwind of activity, two days early in fact. On December 30, I sat down with director Stewart Schill, my music editor Denise Slenski, and music consultant Weslie Brown, to re-spot Frank vs. God - Stewart’s wonderful new feature that I had just signed on over the holidays to score in January. After an 8-hour marathon spotting session, composition commenced on New Years Day. We would be done with the entire score - about 70 minutes of music in all - by the end of the month. Around the same time, final rehearsals were happening for the Los Angeles Master Chorale Oratorio Project performance of Frankenstein: Of Monsters And Men - which played to capacity audiences in February. I was also honored to be asked by the Stanford Alumni Association to do an interactive workshop on Film Music, as part of their “Stanford Connects” program in Los Angeles. (The workshop was sponsored by the Stanford In Entertainment alumni group, an organization for which I’m a board member.) The workshop was a great success and a lot of fun, as other (mostly non-music) creative professionals learned about the history of music in film, and also got a chance to tackle scoring an iconic scene themselves - in creative, collaborative ways. (Let’s just say that trash cans and staplers were involved!) I wrapped up the winter with a wonderful trip to San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference in March - always a whirlwind experience. It was nice to hang out and catch up with old friends in my favorite city, while making new ones as well.
Spring ‘14
With Spring came some wonderful non-composition opportunities: working with now Grammy-nominated conductor and lutenist Stephen Stubbs and the UCLA Early Music Ensemble on a new production of Handel’s L’Allegro; being invited by the Los Angeles Philharmonic to do a local performance “tour” to more than a dozen of their partner schools across LA County; again joining the lecture faculty at the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA; and orchestrating on numerous projects - including Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC, composed by friend and mentor Bear McCreary. By the end of May however, composing responsibilities were heating up again, which leads us to…
Summer ‘14
After delivering the score for a powerful documentary film called Persephone Speaks: The Forgotten Women Of Bosnia - again with a tight turnaround - my plan was to escape to San Francisco for a while to work on Cesare - my original Dr. Caligari opera. However, this plan needed to be adjusted when my friend Jodie Landau presented a gift too wonderful to pass up: the request to compose an original piece for himself, acclaimed Icelandic women’s choir Graduale Nobili, and fast-becoming-iconic LA new-music group wild Up - for a joint collaborative concert that they would be doing in Iceland at the end of the Summer. Recording sessions of the program followed, produced by acclaimed producer Valgeir Sigurosson in Reykjavik. (But not to worry - I still made good progress on the opera as well!) I also began composition on the score for the wonderful 10-short-episode series Manny In Real Life - which just wrapped up right at the end of 2014. The score includes jangly guitars, mandolin, cello, marimba, and assorted percussion, as well as other wacky instruments from around my studio. (Any project where I get to play that weird clarinet/saxophone/recorder hybrid instrument I bought on Venice Beach, is a good project in my book!)
Fall ’14
Finally, the last quarter of the year brought a wealth of creative opportunities for which I’m eternally grateful. First, I was officially named Composer-In-Residence at the Sierra Madre Playhouse, and immediately commenced on my original theater score for the west coast premiere of Amy Herzog’s acclaimed 4,000 Miles. It is always a pleasure to work with director Christian Lebano, and this production was no exception. But the SMP news didn’t end there: we received word that my work for the previous season’s Driving Miss Daisy production had been nominated for an NAACP Theatre Award - an unexpected honor! (The awards ceremony was in November - see previous post.) I then commenced with collaboration on another oratorio for the Los Angeles Master Chorale Oratorio Project, The Passion of Anne Frank. I finished the final score to this eleven-movement piece in December, and it will debut in a series of special concerts on January 22/23, 2015. I can unabashedly say that it has been one of the most artistically meaningful works I’ve ever been a part of. (I hope to write more about it soon.) My orchestration plate has stayed full as well, including the second season of S.H.I.E.L.D. and NBC’s new show Constantine. Last but not least, 2014 came full circle with an invitation late in the year from the Academy of Scoring Arts to do a panel - along with director Stewart Schill, and members of my music team Edward Trybek and Denise Slenski - on the creation of the score to Frank vs. God…which had of course been my very first project of 2014. A fitting end to a full - and immensely fulfilling - creative year.
May 2015 be a year of health and happiness for us all! Happy New Year.
