Jerry Goldsmith Film Music Award Interview

You can find at this link
http://festival.bsospirit.com/multimedia/JG/2010/sensini_eng.htm
my interview for the Jerry Goldsmith International Film Music Award.

Here’s a transcription of it

– Which are your main musical influences, in and outside film music?

I believe that music is just… music, so my influences come from everywhere: Jazz Composers (especially Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus), African, Middle East and European Popular Music, Classical Composers (such as Debussy, Satie, Bartòk, Ravel), Rock Musicians (Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd and The Beatles of course).
In Film Music my reference points are Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer, Alan Silvestri, John Williams.

– How did you get involved with this film?

I met the director on Facebook (cool isn’t it?), we had some mutual friends. He was in need of original music for this amazing project about the Roman origins of the city of Fano (on the Adriatic Coast, not so far from where I live). So, I realized a test composition on the documentary trailer, he liked it, so I started working on the entire project.

– What were the main indications of the director?

The director gave me a lot of freedom, but basically the sound he had in mind was the one of Hans Zimmer. I worked on the final cut of the documentary that had a great rhythm itself. Composing music was easy, melodies were born directly from those great images; the director’s vision was very Hollywood like, like a blockbuster movie. it’s good to have cinematic atmospheres even in a documentary.

– Which what orchestra or musical instruments have you worked with in the film?

I usually like to work with small combos,I think that if you’re lucky enough to find a good melody and some interesting rhythmic/harmonic solutions, a piece of music can sound great just using an acoustic Piano. In this particular work the director asked me to create a Big Orchestral Epic sound (being a documentary about Ancient Rome the reference point, as for the general sound, was Gladiator by Hans Zimmer). So I’ve used both digital and acoustic instruments, lots of ethnic percussions and flutes, and orchestral samples for some strings and brasses.

– What has been your main creative motivations and what have you intended to create with your music?

Since I was about 8 years old, my main goal was to be an Archaeologist, I used to read a lot of books about history and archaeology, and I have been visiting museums all my life and so on. I’ve grown with two passions: Archaeology and Music, and I’ve studied Archaeology at University too (before I left it to start studying Musicology and become a professional Musician). So working on a project which let my two passions meet was a great personal motivation.

Talking about the music itself, working on an historical project gave me the chance to try lots of different solutions, recreate hypothetical historic sounds, make research on ancient music, and develop a personal sound, or what in my opinion could be a modern rendition of ancient Roman Music. I said modern rendition because if we want to create a Cinematic-Hollywood like sound we should use strings ensembles along with ethnic instruments, modern harmonies and modal ones. What I intended to add to the beautiful images was a warm atmosphere, a sort of religious, mysterious music which could help people start this amazing journey into ancient roman traditions.

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