The Screen Composer's Studio

Ottawa born Lora Bidner combines her background as a singer-songwriter multi-instrumentalist as well as affinity for folklore in her music for the screen, which includes the BBC/Family Channel series Malory Towers, mini series Hogtown, feature thriller Don’t Click, and Family Channel series Ruby and the Well, which she co-composes with Rob Carli.  The four-time SOCAN Foundation winner completed a Bachelors of Music from Carlton and a Masters of Music Technology from the University of Toronto, and is an artist in her own right, who released the critically acclaimed To The North in 2015 and is currently working on a new album.We talk about how she got her start singing and writing songs, the surprising film score touchstone that we both share as a favorite, the demanding high school program that got her started writing music early, and the winding educational journey where she overcame tremendous obstacles toward a career as a  singer-songwriter.  In the end, she returned to her first passion - scoring for film and TV.  Since then, Lora graduated from the Canadian Film Center’s Slaight Family Music Lab, where her formidable work ethic helped her meet the intense challenges of that program, preparing her for the real life pressures of being a screen composer.  We talk about the joys and struggles of her recent projects, how she manages the interpersonal aspect, and how folk music and her voice become part of her scores.  Lora’s new challenge is as a new parent, where she juggles the demands of motherhood with a busy scoring career.  She offers valuable perspective for anyone who is thinking about, or living, in that tricky balance.www.lorabidner.com

Originally from the Netherlands, Lodewijk Vos’ approach to music making is very much his own.  One half of the scoring duo Menalon (with Joseph Murray), the Canadian Film Center grad has worked on TV shows such as Diggstown on CBC, documentaries including HBO’s The Slow Hustle and Mr. Tachyon for VICE TV, and films like Level 16 and The Void.  We talk about the wild new instrument/effects box he’s building, his roots playing rock in the Netherlands (but being more interested in the effects pedals than the guitar), starting as an in-house composer for MTV, his move to Toronto and the differences between European and Canadian mindsets, the power of working away from a computer screen, his world-traveling, site-specific modular synth explorations, committing completely but then throwing out film scoring concepts and hours of work, the power of documentaries, dealing with anxiety and fear, rejecting hustle culture, his meditation practice, and sound as healing.www.lovosmusic.com

Neil Parfitt’s wonderfully diverse career sees him working at the highest levels as a composer for animated series, as well as designing custom synth sounds for some of the biggest blockbusters on the planet.  He started out as a kid who was equally fascinated by how music was produced as he was with the technology that was used in the process.  Neil began his scoring journey in anime, with titles like Bakugan Battle Brawlers, and Beyblade.  This multiple Canadian Screen Award nominee is now known for his music on series such as Ranger Rob, The Remarkable Mr. King, and Bravest Warriors, where he writes everything from Golden Age orchestral film music, to 80’s cheese, to chiptunes. We talk about his early days figuring out how things worked by dismantling them, getting his start in Toronto as a dialogue editor, and how dogged persistence led to his entry into animation with Nelvana, working with Japanese creators on anime shows and adapting to musical cultural differences, a terrifying surprise meeting while he was on vacation, the joys and challenges of working on animated series, where you have to “turn on a dime  [and produce] a million different cues”, becoming an accidental Youtuber, and being terrible at self-promotion.Heads up - this episode does contain a bit more strong language than usual.www.neilparfitt.com

Originally from Hamilton, Ontario, Carly Paradis has made a name for herself as a first call screen composer, scoring huge TV hits such as the BAFTA nominated Line of Duty, Sick Note, and Netflix’s The Innocents.  After a stint in Toronto’s burgeoning indie rock scene in the mid-2000’s, a cold email to Clint Mansell on Myspace turned into an opportunity to work with the famed composer on his score for Moon, and to tour in his ensemble.  This led her to making London, UK her home base, and from there she has built an enviable career writing for top shelf film, TV, and trailer projects.  She also finds time to write and produce her own albums, including her latest, Nothing is Something, and most recently, to land the job as the touring keyboard player for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in Summer 2022.  We chat about her minimalist studio approach, surviving the pandemic, her art school and songwriter roots, working with the London Contemporary Orchestra, her work on the massive British hit and cultural touchstone that is Line of Duty, how she funds and creates her ambitious albums, using unsung, imagined lyrics to guide her scoring, and much more.www.carlyparadis.com@carlyparadis

In this episode, we’re going to change things up a bit.  My guest is a composer, musician, and engineer, but his primary vocation is as an entertainment lawyer with a specialty in IP and copyright.  This is your hour of pro-bono legal advice, and a masterclass drawing back the curtain on some of the things most creative types fear and neglect: contracts, negotiation, and making sure the business of your art is well taken care of.Like many kids of Chinese-Canadian immigrants, Jeff Young was urged to go into a pragmatic field of study.  While he did follow his musical passions, he also studied business and law, and was called to the bar at the early age of 23.  He also worked in various capacities on projects for Warner, Universal, CBC, and most notably, engineered mixes for some of Vivendi Universal's most successful video games: The Hulk, Dark Angel, and The Simpsons Hit and Run.  The tough life of 20 hour days left little time for much else, and so he turned to entertainment law as a means to support his family and lead a more balanced life.  A member of the Law Society of British Columbia and the State Bar of California, he has represented Grammy winning artists and negotiated with the likes of Virgin, BMG, Disney, Sony and Warner/Chappel.  While Jeff spends the bulk of his time as a legal professional, he now balances it with a growing scoring career, which has seen him recently completing 3 feature length films.In this chat, Jeff reveals the specific language and approaches he uses to respond to some common “problem” clauses found in composer contracts, red flags and other things to watch for, dealing with fear and anxiety around conflict, and the concept of leverage in negotiations, including the biggest lever of power a creative person can have. Jeff dispels some myths and notes that getting a professional to help you avoid serious missteps can be less costly than you might think.  His unique perspective as a musician and lawyer, and his passion and energy make for an engaging and informative conversation, perfect for anyone wanting to get a better understanding of this part of our business.

Alberta-born Jonathan Kawchuk is interested in where and how we live as a means to give his music context.  He completed a Bachelors of Music at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, worked with Nico Muhly, Ben Frost, and the Philip Glass Ensemble, as well as studying wildlife field recording with Chris Watson.  The environment, the sounds that arise from it, and how his own music interacts with the environment are themes that permeate his music over the course of several albums.  The most recent, Everywhen, takes his ideas to the most extreme, allowing for only 3 sound sources - the human voice, sine tones, and the sound of the Kananaskis Rockies.  The resulting work, which required pre-market software to fully realize, was mixed for Dolby Atmos and uses no compression, EQ, or reverb.  In his film work, which includes NFB feature Memento Mori and the indie hit Clara, he is equally daring.  We chat about the incredible (and unintended) technical complexity of creating Everywhen, his interest in environmentalism, athleticism, exhaustion, and fear in his music, his recent score for Niobe Thompson’s documentary, Carbon: The Unauthorized Biography, and the bridge he navigates between being a recording artist and screen composer.http://jonathankawchuk.com/@jonathankawchuk

At the tender age of 11, Rob Duncan dismantled a piano in his experimental music class.  This must have been a spark for him, as he is now known for recording scores on decommissioned nuclear submarines, finding his next instrument in a junkyard, or being asked by a producer to write a theme using a toilet.  Though he was equally interested in computer animation, he ended up pursuing music at York University, and worked writing jingles before making the jump to Los Angeles, where he landed his first breakout gig: writing the score for the final season of the cult-hit Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Since then, he has firmly established himself as a go-to TV composer, and has written hours of music for shows such as Castle, Timeless, and S.W.A.T., garnering 4 Emmy nominations along the way.  We chat about the importance of mentors, the responsibility a composer has for the emotion of every chord, the incredible lengths one sometimes has to go to to nail a show’s theme, trying to achieve work-life balance, the beauty of imperfection in sampling, and how he has managed through some of his biggest career ups and downs.@robertduncanmx

At first, Winnipeg-born Ari Posner set out to build a career as a songwriter.  After discovering that perhaps his abilities as a lyricist did not match his musical gifts, he moved into the fast-paced world of ads, which gave him the training to work in myriad styles and deliver on a deadline.  Now, he is one of Canada’s most respected and prolific screen composers.  In collaboration with Amin Bhatia, he has scored award winning hit shows such as Anne with an E, Flashpoint, and X Company, and with Ian Lefeuvre shows including Carter, Johnny Test, and Supernoobs.  In this episode, we talk about his stirring solo  work on Northern Rescue, and get philosophical about the long-term effects that the pandemic has had on his working life, the upsides of having a studio in a commercial space, working remotely, and ask: “is the spotting session dead?”  We also dig into his methods for capturing and re-purposing ideas, using the “mirror test”, the amount of emotional information a scene can have and how music fits into that, dealing with client feedback, when collaboration goes wrong, plus an incredible insight about screen music from Canadian acting icon Colm Feore.www.arimusic.com

 Cristobal Tapia De Veer is a maverick whose consistently unique approach to scoring has finally, and deservedly, thrust him into the spotlight.  His family fled the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile shortly after his birth, and while they returned for a time, they eventually made a new home in Quebec, where Cristobal still lives and works.  While the folk music of Chile was “always in the background”, he was more into Michael Jackson and “more extreme” forms of metal.  But the rhythms and instruments of his birthplace still find their way into his music, contributing to the rich tapestry of his sound.  Before getting into scoring, he completed a Masters of Music as a percussionist, and even had a small dance music hit called Supersex with a group called OneTon.  In 2006, he self-produced a bedroom recorded album called “The Spider in Charlie’s Box” which was intended to introduce him to producers as a “true individual unwilling to follow the rules”.  This caught the attention of showrunner Marc Munden, who hired Cristobal to score the period drama The Crimson Petal and the White.  This led to Utopia which was a breakout for De Veer, who was noted for his novel scoring.  More shows would follow, including Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Humans, and Black Mirror.  It feels as if he’s been consistently working on a musical thesis, which has culminated in his much lauded score for The White Lotus.  We chat about his early days, his instinctive approach to music making, his punk attitude and feeling that music should be noticed like another character on the screen, and strange time spent working with Kanye West that ultimately provided the materials for his groundbreaking sound for The White Lotus.  @CristobalMusic@FreeRunArtists 

Season 3 is coming on July 13, 2022, and features the incredible Cristobal Tapia de Veer!

Called “One of the most compelling acts Canada has to offer.” by Time magazine, Sarah Slean has been beguiling audiences since she first appeared on scene in the late 90’s, when she was signed to Atlantic/Warner at just 19 years of age.  Her infectious combination of piano forward pop and cabaret, and her singular voice propelled her to acclaim.  The 4 time Juno nominee with 11 albums under her belt was classically trained and fascinated by sound and orchestration early on.  She wrote arrangements and instrumental pieces for her albums, and eventually went on to provide orchestral arrangements for the likes of Dan Mangan and Hawksley Workman.  A storyteller in the truest sense, she also works as a painter, a poet, a broadcaster, and even did a stint of acting for which she was nominated for a Gemini.  Now, Sarah is taking all of her talents and background and applying them to help tell stories for the screen.  In this endeavor she has already met with success, winning a CSA for Detention Adventure alongside collaborators Ari Posner, Amin Bhatia, and Antonio Naranjo.  Deeply philosophical and highly articulate, Sarah is able to speak about her work and life as an artist in a way that is both illuminating and inspiring.www.sarahslean.com

Michel Cusson established his reputation as a formidable guitar player and composer in the early 80’s with celebrated jazz-rock group Uzeb, whose tours were cultural journeys which gave Michel the opportunity to meet and play with musicians in places like Senegal, Morocco, and Southeast Asia.  In the early 90’s, the group disbanded and Michel turned his attention to scoring.  Early hits such as the mob-thriller series Omertà established his reputation and led to many more series and films, as well as scoring on an epic scale for IMAX documentaries such as Wolves, Ultimate Wave Tahiti, and Volcanoes of the Deep Sea.  He has also been the composer and musical director for massive touring live shows, including the equine themed Odysseo and Cavalia.  We talk about the challenges and joys of working across all these mediums, how his jazz background translates to his screen composing work, and how he’s kept the spirit of improvisation and performance alive even during the pandemic, with his Michel Cusson en direct streaming shows on Youtube, broadcasting from his studio which he refers to as “the spaceship”. https://www.michelcusson.com/english  https://www.youtube.com/c/michelcussonmusic/playlists 

Todor Kobakov grew up in Bulgaria where at age 7 he was accepted into a music focused school so competitive that there were kids in the wings waiting to take your spot if you stumbled.  He began showing up to help out on the sets where his mother worked as a producer for the National broadcaster, sparking his interest in the intersection between music and the screen.  After high school, he moved to Canada and at age 20 completed a degree in piano performance at the University of Toronto, where he fell into a crowd of musicians including future indie darlings like Gonzales, Peaches, and Feist.  This led him to performing, producing, and arranging for artists like Stars, Metric, Sarah Slean, K-os, and many more.  At the same time, Todor was getting his foothold creating music for commercials and indie films, eventually landing a coveted spot in the Canadian Film Center’s Slaight Music residency where he would meet and work with iconic director Bruce MacDonald.  Now, he’s firmly established his reputation as a composer with films like Born to be Blue starring Ethan Hawke, and series such as Bitten, Ransom, and Most Dangerous Game, while his work on Cardinal has won him 2 Canadian Screen Awards.  www.todor.ca

Suad Bushnaq has long struggled to answer the question “where’s home?” in simple terms.  The Jordanian-Canadian composer and polymath with Bosnian, Syrian, and Palestinian roots grew up in Amman, studied in Damascus and Montreal, spent time teaching in North Carolina, and now makes her home in Toronto.  Her work reflects her experiences and travels, as she explores Western and Middle Eastern musical traditions, and some of the places she’s lived both in times of war and peace.  She now splits her time between concert music commissions and her work as a film composer.  We discuss that dichotomy, how she balances being an artist and a craftsperson, her perspectives on studying in Syria and Canada, traditions of Middle Eastern music, and what changed for her during the Pandemic.  The Hollywood Music in Media award winner who Hans Zimmer himself has referred to as “an incredible artist” also talks about some of her biggest challenges, including the score for a demanding film that she worked on for almost 4 years.  The project concluded with a set of international recording sessions that saw strings captured in Damascus between bombings, while others tracked at Air Edel in London, North Carolina, and Toronto.  A mentor once told her never to second guess her gut instinct, and now Suad is making a home in music that is truly her own.www.suadbushnaq.com

Brian and Caleb Chan bring a high level of emotional intelligence to everything they do, and believe that a focus on that growth is critical to success in both life and creative business.  When you understand that their attention to the inner world carries over into the work they do as musicians and storytellers, you realize it’s no accident that they’ve been so successful.  They also seem to avoid being pigeonholed, and their work spans from the horror of Sam Raimi’s 50 States of Fright, to the preschool fare of Hatchimals, to TV romances like A Homecoming for the Holidays.  The brothers have diverged and come together a few times over the years, collaborating all the while as they each followed unique but parallel musical paths.  While Caleb studied composition at the University of Toronto, Brian earned a Masters in Sound Recording at McGill.  Now, their complementary strengths blend beautifully, and by all accounts, they’re just getting started.  We chat about their early days in Hong Kong and Canada, how they work as a team, the joys and challenges of their diverse slate, and how a recent flurry of work has made them much more intentional about their approach, with an eye toward balance and sustainability.https://www.chansounds.com

Janal Bechthold’s musical journey started not on the piano playing Mozart, but rather on the organ playing 50’s swing and Tangos.  Again sidestepping more well-worn paths, she studied music therapy at Laurier and spent years alternately in that profession, and as a church organist.  These activities were, however, both informed by and are now critical to her work as a musical storyteller - work which has now been recognized with an incredible 3 CSA nominations in 2021.  In our conversation, Janal describes her interesting musical upbringing, her work helping people heal using music, how she utilizes her diverse experiences in what she does as a screen composer, the issues and stories that link many of her projects together, the important work she spearheaded to push forward the conversation about women screen composers, and the holistic approach she’s taking to evaluate where she wants her journey will take her next.  Now, it looks like her relationship with the organ has come full circle, as she contemplates stripping the instrument down to re-contextualize it’s sound and her approach to making music.

Donald Quan sees his whole life, including his career and businesses, as an improvisation.  As a composer, he is known for his work on shows such as Relic Hunter, Mutant X, and APTN’s Moccasin Flats.  As a musician and recording artist, he has toured with Loreena McKennitt and Lighthouse, and recorded his own music at Peter Gabriel’s iconic Real World Studios.  His incredible studio, Q Music, once housed over 400 indigenous instruments from 6 continents, and he has collaborated with groups such as The Toronto Tabla Ensemble, Samba Squad, M-DO Kathak Toronto Dance, and First Nations choreographer Santee Smith.In 2007, I was lucky enough to spend time as Donald’s apprentice, and throughout this conversation I recount memories of that challenging and formative time, and get to thank him for being a big part of my development as a composer and creative person.We talk about his growing up in Toronto as the only Chinese-Canadian kid in his school, his early start in music and how he ended up at the nascent film scoring program at Berklee.  There, he learned the traditional techniques of pen and paper scoring, as well as old school analog methods of syncing music to picture.  It was, however, his interest in the emerging use of computers in music that would help him stand out and get him his first breaks in the industry.  During a performance in 2009, Donald suffered a near-fatal stroke and was without vital signs for nearly 20 minutes.  He miraculously survived, but would spend weeks in a coma, after which a long journey toward recovery began.  Now, over 10 years later, I help Donald restore some of his memory as I share stories of our time together.

Every time I chat with Peter Chapman (AKA Coins), I hear another amazing story, well told.  The pivotal moments in his life also connect in a narrative full of serendipitous events that have opened windows to let his talent shine through.  This multiple-Canadian Screen Award nominee started his diverse career producing hip-hop and electronic music, and got his breakout gig via the instructor of one of his electives, 8 years after attending the Ontario College of Art and Design.  That show was Durham County, and many more would follow: the sci-fi cult favorite Wynonna Earp (co-scored with Rob Carli), Bomb Girls, HGTV’s Leave It To Bryan, CBC’s hit, Workin’ Moms, and many more.  He’s also been a first call for developers, scoring games such as Guacamele 1 & 2, Little Big Planet Karting, and Soundshapes, among others.  We talk about how he left cassettes of his music in public bathrooms, the crash-course learning of first gigs, his airport-layover-created Beastie Boys remix that went hyper-viral and ended up being lauded by Maxim, Esquire, People, and Billboard magazine, how he bridged the gap between being an electronic producer to writing for orchestra, and why he thinks one of the keys to success is being able to take a good punch.

Steph Copeland cut her teeth in the Windsor/Detroit underground electronic and hip-hop scene, but her scoring career quickly developed alongside her successes as a songwriter and performer.  With her dark, electronic sensibilities and production chops, she soon became known for her gritty work on indie genre films like Antisocial 1 and 2, Bite, I’ll Take Your Dead, and more recently the 80’s inspired, synth drenched Vicious Fun.  She has since had a chance to show a more light, playful side, scoring romantic comedies like Snowbound for Christmas and dramatic series like The Wedding Planners. We look at how she balances her love of scoring with writing and producing songs, the joy of genre films, how she deals with difficult situations, having a cinematographer as a partner, and her take on success and how she looks at her future.https://www.stephcopeland.com/ 

Andrew Lockington is known for the epic scale of the blockbuster films he’s worked on, as well as the incredible lengths he goes to to capture his sounds - things like venturing into the deepest jungle or risking injury and death to dismantle a piano.  But make no mistake - these sonic explorations are matched by his beautiful and evocative orchestral writing, and when you add all that to his humble, curious, and down to earth nature, it quickly becomes obvious as to why he’s one of the top composers in Hollywood.  We explore all of these facets and more in this wonderful conversation, including how he got his start assisting Mychael Danna, his fascinating career trajectory and how he went all-in to get his first big break, how he has found success with a diverse range of collaborators and projects, and how he thinks about sound and finds new perspectives that are the drivers of his work and growth as an artist.www.andrewlockington.com