Sundance Institute Announces Six Fellows for the 2009 Sundance Institute Composers Lab
Fellows Span the Musical Spectrum with Unique Backgrounds in Jazz, Funk, Big Band, and Classical
Creative Advisors Include Three-Time Academy Award Winner Walter Murch and Golden Globe Winner Harry Gregson-Williams
Los Angeles, CA — Today, Sundance Institute announced the six musicians selected for the 2009 Sundance Institute Composers Lab, which runs from July 15 - July 29 at the Sundance Resort in Utah. This year’s Composers Lab Fellows are Kim Carroll, Chanda Dancy, Magda Giannikou, Lili Haydn, Christopher Lord, and David Poe. The selected composers bring an eclectic range of talent to the two-week lab, which focuses on the process of writing music for film with the support and guidance of the industry’s leading film composers and film music professionals.
To give the composers first-hand experience, the Lab Fellows also collaborate with filmmakers from the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program. The Composers Lab Fellows will explore the process of writing music for film by creating accompanying scores for scenes shot during the Feature Film Program’s Directors Lab, held earlier this summer.
The Composers Lab is a major component of the Sundance Institute Film Music Program, dedicated to supporting emerging film composers and to enhancing the role of music in independent film. First offered from 1986-1989, the Composers Lab was re-introduced in the summer of 1998 to provide a collaborative and supportive environment in which composers experiment and expand their musical language. The Lab Fellows have a wide variety of experiences — some have never scored a film while others have composed quite a few scores for independent film.
“During their time at the lab, we create a place where the composers can focus on stretching their unique musical voice,” said Peter Golub, Director, Sundance Institute Film Music Program. “By pairing composers with filmmakers, we initiate dialogue and explore the important role music plays in storytelling. We are thrilled that this year’s fellows bring a diversity of backgrounds and of genres, and their time at the Lab will certainly be a time of exploration and growth.”
The Fellows for the 2009 Sundance Institute Composers Lab are:
Kim Carroll
Irish-born, Carroll has distinguished himself by taking an organic approach to film composing, using live instruments and employing discrete textured guitar. His credits include the thriller The Colony (Gold Medal winner at the 2008 Park City Film Music Festival); the dark comedy webseries Hellholes; the 2009 Sundance Film Festival acclaimed film The Horse Boy (co-composed with Lili Haydn); and the documentary Survival of the Wildebeest. As a guitarist, he can be heard on the soundtracks of Gone Baby Gone, The Chronicles of Narnia, Veronica Guerin and others.
Chanda Dancy
Dancy, a composer of music for film and video games including Arabian Lords and Code Orange, is a graduate of the University of Southern California Advanced Studies in Scoring for Film and Television. She is the winner of 2002 BMI Fellowship in Film Scoring and the 2004 Associated Production Music/Young Musicians Foundation Music Business Fellowship. Dancy has had the opportunity to score several films including the critically acclaimed documentary What Are We Waiting For? and the award-winning feature Chandler Hall. Music by Chanda has been heard around the world at festivals such as Cannes Film Festival, L.A. Film Festival, Jackson Hole Film Festival, Sapporo Short Film Festival, and L.A. Asian Pacific Film Festival.
Magda Giannikou
Born in Athens, Greece, Giannikou studied piano and musical theory at the National Conservancy of Greece and Nakas Jazz School. After working as an in-house arranger/producer for Legend Recordings’ children’s division, Giannikou attended Berklee College of Music, where she received the Georges Delerue Award for Achievement in Film Scoring. In addition to film composing, Giannikou has explored big band music, and she has performed as an accordionist and vocalist, including for her own band, Mellow Bellow.
Lili Haydn
Before launching her solo career, singer-songwriter-violinist Lili Haydn established herself by playing with such diverse artists as Porno for Pyros, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Herbie Hancock, Robert Plant & Jimmy Page and the Los Angeles Philharmonic,. She has released four solo albums with major labels; her most recent album, Places Between Places, was featured on NPR. A sometime member of Parliament-Funkadelic, Haydn has been called by George Clinton “the Jimi Hendrix of the violin.” She also co-composed the score to the critically acclaimed 2009 Sundance Film Festival, The Horse Boy.
Christopher Lord
As a graduate of UCLA and Berklee College of Music, Lord is the top-10 winner of the 8th Annual Young Film Composers Competition (Turner Classic Movies) and was chosen to participate in the mentorship program at the Society of Composers and Lyricists. Recent credits include At the Movies (ABC), Million Dollar Listing (Bravo), and the feature Blind Ambition. As an orchestrator, he has worked on numerous studio films, including Transformers 2VG, The Dark Knight, Hairspray, Evan Almighty, and The Mummy 3.
David Poe
Originally from the Midwest, Poe was transplanted to Manhattan where he ran the soundboard for the legendary CBGB’s gallery before he signed onto Sony/Epic. A songwriter, producer and composer for film, theater, and dance, Poe has scored the films Chapter, Dare, Harvest and Little Spirit, created premiere musical works for Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet and Pilobolus Dance Theatre, and released four albums and a live performance DVD. He has collaborated with numerous artists, including T-Bone Burnett, Regina Spektor and Duncan Sheik.
This year’s Creative Advisors include George S. Clinton (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery); Osvaldo Golijov (Tetro, Youth Without Youth), Harry Gregson-Williams (Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Taking of Pelham 123); music supervisor and head of music at Lionsgate Tracy McKnight (The Groomsmen, Wordplay, Friends with Money); film editor/sound designer Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now, The English Patient, Cold Mountain); David Newman (Death to Smoochy, Ice Age); Doreen Ringer Ross (Vice-President, Film/TV Relations at BMI); Ed Shearmur (The Merry Gentleman, Charlie’s Angels); and film-music agent William “Vasi” Vangelos (First Artists).
The Sundance Institute Composers Lab receives major support from BMI. Additional support for the 2009 Sundance Institute Film Composers Lab is generously provided by Apple, The Baisley Powell Elebash Fund, Hewlett Packard Company, H.P. Marketing, JBL Professional, LaCie, Mackie, Mark of the Unicorn, Native Instruments, Sony Business and Professional Products Company, Sony Media, Sony ProAudio, and Soundcraft.
Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is a not-for-profit organization that fosters the development of original storytelling in film and theatre, and presents the annual Sundance Film Festival. Internationally recognized for its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, film composers, playwrights and theatre artists, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Angels in America, Spring Awakening, Boys Don’t Cry, Sin Nombre, Born into Brothels and Trouble the Water. www.sundance.org
The Orchestra: An Online User’s Manual
One of the many positive aspects of the internet, is having so much information readily available 24 hours a day, seven days a week and reachable from any part of the world. If you are always on the look for orchestration or instrumentation information, you are definitely going to like the following website. “The Orchestra: A User’s Manual“, is a powerful online resource for composers, orchestrators, students, useful to anyone with an interest in orchestras and orchestral music or anyone learning to play an instrument. It was conceived and written by Andrew Hugill in 2002-3 and the project was commissioned by the Philharmonia Orchestra.
On the site, players from the Philharmonia Orchestra explain the nature and technical limitations of their instruments with the intention to represent a realistic picture of the orchestra. The great thing about the site, is the use of video clips for explanations. The manual includes information about instrument construction, ranges, techniques, effects, and extended player’s tips and tricks, as well as resources, historical information and pointing to other helpful links.
The following paragraph is a description taken from the site:
“The aim of the user’s manual is to provide information about the orchestra, orchestration, composition and instruments, for the benefit of anybody with an interest in the subject. Unlike conventional text-based orchestration manuals, this features movies of players explaining relevant aspects of their instruments and technique, audio clips and samples of the instruments, and illustrative music from the repertoire drawn from the Philharmonia’s postwar recorded archive. The Philharmonia is the most recorded orchestra in history and from its birth in 1945 has been associated with new technologies. This use of the internet to convey information is entirely consistent with its desire to open up access to all areas of orchestral life and music-making.”
The Orchestra: A User’s Manual is one element of ‘The Sound Exchange‘, a site that provides opportunities for people to learn about the orchestra, about music and exploit the internet to help widen access to the orchestra.
Music Composition Directory
We are very excited to introduce Composersnewpencil’s music composition link directory. 
If you are a composer, songwriter, etc., please feel free to submit your site(s) or your favorite music composition related website(s). Our intention is to build a targeted and quality content directory. All links will be personally reviewed for consideration. The main categories include: classical composition, electronic art music, film scoring, jazz composition & arranging, songwriting, experimental pop & rock, music technology and finally stores & products. Subcategories include: composer and artist sites, resources, communities and organizations among others. New categories can also be suggested.
The directory is brand new, so some categories do not contain links yet. All feedback is welcome.
Music Composition for the Screen
Film Scoring Programs:
The Music Department at Columbia College Chicago offers the Master of Fine Arts degree in Music Composition for the Screen, one of the few advanced degrees in music scoring for film, television and other visual media in the United States. It is an interdisciplinary curriculum that draws upon five academic departments including: Music, Film/Video, Audio Arts & Acoustics, Theater and Television (Columbia’s film and video department is acknowledged as the largest in the world). The last semester is spent in Los Angeles, California and is the vital part of the program. Read more