Meet the composers!
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This was actually a topic posted by Falkirkbairn on Maintitles some years ago. Falkirkbairn posted a few times on this board early on too, but then disappeared for mysterious reasons (please come back, Alan!).
Anyway, it’s easy:
Have you ever met any film composer (that we might have heard of) in real life? If so, what was it like?
John Barry, at a signing in HMV London in 1998. He was signing The Beyondness of Things, and he signed my programme, the BoT CD cover and also the CD cover of The Knack.
The latter was for Mrs TG, and I asked him to sign it to Becca (short, of course, for Rebecca). Initially he misheard and signed it “To Decca”, as if I was married to the record company…. We had a good laugh about it, and fortunately it was easy to change the D to a B. Lovely fella, Yorkshireman, of course 🙂
I also met and chatted to several others including David Arnold and Christopher Gunning at a charity screening of Psycho arranged by Arnold and Dave Norris, who was then the projection manager at The Empire, Leicester Square. All very good eggs.
And I also met your pal in London that time, whose name escapes me because I’m on holiday and have had a bit to drink. Eirik Myhr, it’s come back to me now.
When I was living in London (1987 to 1990), I went for a pint or six in The Red Lion pub in Ealing. There was live jazz on in a dark corner, and at the end of one piece, the lead (don’t know who he was) asked for a round of applause for the band members – “…and Derek Wadsworth on trombone”. I thought, “there can’t be that many Derek Wadsworths playing trombones”, so when he went to the bar for a pint I asked him if he was THE Derek Wadsworth “…who did SPACE: 1999”. When he admitted that he was indeed that chap, I went into a long, boring (for him) spiel about music for science fiction films. It’s funny how we (or just I?) imagine that all musicians and composers who dabble in the medium are as much fans of the stuff as we are. I was going on about how ALIEN was such a brilliant score when I noticed that his eyes had begun to glaze over, so I eventually left him in peace with his pint.
From the few words he got in edgeways, he came across as a soft spoken, polite and rather shy big guy. Another Yorkshireman incidentally.
Film scoring is indeed A JOB for many. Not their passion.
That’s a bit too hard. If you have to or want to make a living of your passion not every project you work on is and can also a passion project at the same time. Same may apply to playing in a pub where hardly anyone notices you or playing on weddings or whaterver. You really have to be in a position to afford to do only passion projects. Someone like John Williams can do that after he got his break with Spielberg. Also artist in general often have an rather ambilvalent relationship to their own work and especially older works they may consider not perfect from the currentt point of view.
Not really. I have had short conversations with guys like Thorsten Quaeschning, Jan Bang, Øystein Sevåg and Knut Reiersrud, who all dabbled in film music.
And I also met your pal in London that time, whose name escapes me because I’m on holiday and have had a bit to drink. Eirik Myhr, it’s come back to me now.
Hi, Tall Guy! It was nice meeting in London back then! Hope you’ve been well.
Have you met some film composers, Eirik, outside the Nordic ones? I know of one, in particular (actually, I know of a few you’ve met). 😉
Well, going «undercover» as your photographer, TJ, we did of course meet Patrick Doyle in 2014 and Danny Elfman in 2017… Hard to top that one, fanboy-wise! Since I didn’t want to disturb them other than let you do your interviews, I’ll just have to live with the fact that they will forever see me as a paparazzi rather than a colleague. 😀
My memory is failing, there must have been more, but I really only remember the Nordic ones, and especially my Norwegian colleagues who I often meet once or twice a year. I can’t recall actually speaking to any international composers in particular…
Oh I remember, I did meet Nainita Desai, it must have been in 2019 or early 2020. She did a great presentation at one of these NOPA (Norwegian composer and songwriter’s union) gatherings. We had a small chat afterwards, and geeked out a bit over the use of sample libraries. She was really nice, wonderful person and composer!
Loek Dikker, yes! Always sticking his head around… LOL!
(It’s extra funny because Loek = Løk, which means «onion» in Norwegian, and also quite an insult…)I never really spoke to him, though… As far as I can remember.
I met Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode in Oslo some years ago. He signed a DM CD for me that I had just bought.
I met James Newton Howard last year. Lovely chap, very humble and almost shy. And I observed John Williams some years ago, but didn’t fight to talk to him.
Cool, Mark! Did you mention the fact that you live in Norway? I think JNH has some family living out west here.
And what were the circumstances for the Williams spotting?
“Hi, Tall Guy! It was nice meeting in London back then! Hope you’ve been well.”
Likewise, Eirik, despite the belatedness of my response!
I could probably just cut-and-paste my comment from MainTitles but where’s the fun in that!
My most recent encounter with a composer was with Brian Tyler when he “recently” conducted his music in London at the RFH. (Brian is actually edited out of the photo I use here).
He was such a nice guy – I think that he was overwhelmed by the attention as it was his first experience of having his own concert and conducting it.
BTW
Falkirkbairn posted a few times on this board early on too, but then disappeared for mysterious reasons (please come back, Alan!)
I am back!
A side issue on this is if you’ve met one of your composer heroes, and the meeting didn’t go exactly as planned. You know, “never meet your heroes” and all that. If the meeting was unfulfilling in some way? Those would be good stories too.
Hey Jon, I saw on Facebook that you met Anneli Drecker and Bel Canto recently? That’s something to share in this thread, although they’re not film composers.
It’s been several years, but I got to meet a handful when I used to live in Los Angeles. Total fangirl moments all around. Some I’ve gotten pictures with, some I’ve gotten autographs from, and others I’ve just been able to shake hands in gratitude for – but pure joyful experiences, all of them.
I remember we’ve talked about that in chats and on Maintitles, Cailin. Of course, NAMES would be great, but it’s okay if you won’t. 🙂
Hey Jon, I saw on Facebook that you met Anneli Drecker and Bel Canto recently? That’s something to share in this thread, although they’re not film composers.
Sure. It was great talking a bit to Drecker, I’ve been a fan for 35 years. She said Bel Canto worked best under pressure, so I guess they could have done a score. Also nice to see Ketil Bjørnstad, he has actually done some film scores, like this fine one from 1982:
My BC favorite:
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