4 Studio Recording Sessions
The recording sessions on this program are designed to be both challenging and rewarding; you’ll be pushed to your limits as our team strives to bring out your creative voice. Start with capturing emotions with solo piano and end with scoring a scene with a 38-piece symphony orchestra.
Bring Your Music to Life: Record with the European Recording Orchestra (ERO)
Imagine yourself sitting in a recording studio, surrounded by your peers and an ensemble of professional musicians, as you see and hear your compositions come to life. That feeling of accomplishment, the thrill of experiencing your music come alive, is something you will never forget.
Your orchestration skills will level up exponentially over the course of the program as you draw from the course curriculum and faculty knowledge. As the ensembles grow, so too does your skillset.
Your music will be played by the European Recording Orchestra (ERO), a professional session orchestra based in Sofia, Bulgaria, with the sessions being hosted in Bulgarian National Radio Studio Varna and Sofia. During your recording slot your feedback (and that of the score supervisor and conductor) will be worked into each subsequent take.
The feedback from the score supervisor is designed to enhance your compositions in areas where it may need fine-tuning, and so it’s a hands-on learning experience for you, as well as for your peers in the room. Through this program you’re equipped with an unparalleled portfolio-building opportunity, as we provide multi-cam HD video footage for each of the recording sessions.
If you're serious about becoming a film composer, and transforming your portfolio into a professional one, this is the program for you.
A more detailed look at the recording sessions:
Recording Session 1
Solo Piano: Scoring an Emotion
In this session, you will compose for solo piano, writing music that evokes a specific emotion. Emotion underpins all forms of visual media, and so this assignment is designed to test your ability to evoke your chosen emotion using harmonic language, thematic material, and the instrument provided.
Recording Session 2
String Quintet + 2 Clarinets: Scoring A Season: Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn
In this session, you will compose for string quintet and two clarinets, writing music that captures the essence of a particular season. This session is about deep-diving into the world of orchestration, focusing on technique of creating colour with strings and woodwinds, and utilising the ensemble as effectively as possible to deliver on the assignment brief.
Recording Session 3
21-piece Strings, Piano, Harp: Composing A Love Theme
In this session, you will compose for a 21-piece string ensemble with piano and harp, focusing on composing a love theme to picture. Tempo-mapping is a crucial part of the modern film composer’s skill set, and so this assignment relies just as much on your technical abilities and screen-spotting instinct as it does your musical skills.
Recording Session 4
38-piece Symphony Orchestra: Reading & Scoring A Scene / Scoring A Main Title
In this summative session, you will compose for a symphony 38-piece orchestra, recorded in the famous Bulgarian National Radio Studio 1 in Sofia, Bulgaria. You’ll use the knowledge you’ve accumulated in the weeks prior to score a scene/main title of your choosing.
As is becoming the norm in today’s industry, this session will be conducted remotely. You’ll dial in to the studio in Sofia from the classroom in Varna, seeing and hearing high fidelity video and audio live from the session, connecting with the team in the studio via Zoom and Audiomovers ListenTo.
Have questions about this programme?
Speak with our Admissions Department. Submit our enquiry form to receive personalised answers to your questions.