“Film directors make brilliant collaborators for musicians. For me, there’s a symbiosis at play: I find directors often see images as they hear my music, while I hear music as I pore over the screenplay of a film yet to be scored.

Writing music for drama has been my focus since I was a teenager in Canberra, writing music for Shakespeare at school. The evenings I spent at the piano sketching, writing, and reharmonising was precious groundwork for the work I do today.

When I’m on a film project, the music is always around me. Sometimes musical themes form as I sleep, ready for catching in the morning.

The possibilities are limitless. Our musical approach might be obvious or felt, supporting or contrasting, anchored, ethereal, screeching, plunging. This is work of the head, the heart and the gut; work of instinct, of intellect, and of curiosity as we explore, research, draft, redraft and create, striving to create a memorable emotional journey.

Our goal is for every element to be seamless, fully integrated and deeply resonant. If we do our job well, you too will experience it in your head, your heart and your gut.

I was brought on by Canadian-Kuwaiti director Fawaz Al-Matrouk to compose the score for To Rest in Peace after we met in Los Angeles through the University of Southern California. It’s a beautifully shot, deeply human story that moved me on first look.

Al-Matrouk: “the film is inspired by the true story of Malek, a Kuwaiti man during the Iraqi Invasion in 1990. Day after day, he passes two dead bodies that no one is burying. He wants to find out why, but everyone is afraid to interfere during wartime. Caught between his fear of death and his respect for human dignity, Malek decides to bury the bodies himself by the side of the road.”

I conducted the debut recording of this score at the legendary Capitol Records Studio A on Sunset Boulevard, and this performance will be its very first for String Orchestra.

The film has won a number of international awards. It was selected to premiere at the Dubai International Film Festival and was an official selection for the Cannes Film Festival’s American Pavilion in France.

The original score won the Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best World Music and received a nomination for Best Original Score (Independent Feature, Short, or Documentary).”