Keeping Score: A Look Inside the Creative Process of Composing for Film

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PARK CITY, UTAHJaws, The Shining, There Will Be Blood… All are examples of films for which score is as important as story. The relationship between director and composer is central to the filmmaking process: What would a Steven Spielberg movie be without John Williams? Or one of Tim Burton’s films without Danny Elfman? Carter Burwell’s score for the Cohen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men was a mere 16 minutes in length — although the film was over two hours long — how are such decisions made? On Wednesday, May 6, audiences are invited into the powerful world of film music hosted by Peter Golub, the award-winning film composer and director of Sundance Institute’s Film Music Program. Free to the public, the event is part of the Sundance Institute Film Series, a year-round community film series offering works that best represent the Institute’s spectrum of programs.

Known to many Utahns for writing the seminal Ballet West work The Gilded Bat, Peter Golub returns to Park City for an evening of exploration into the role of music in film: how it is used to trigger specific responses in the filmgoer, how it adds, or may detract from the emotional quality of a scene, how directors and composers determine where and when music is needed. By showing excerpts from films for which he has composed, including the 2008 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize winner Frozen River and Denzel Washington’s The Great Debaters, Golub will discuss how music is composed for film. He will also share details about the Sundance Institute Film Music Program and its upcoming annual Composers Lab, dedicated to supporting emerging film composers and to enhancing the role of music in independent film.

An Evening with Peter Golub is made possible by support from Principal Sponsor Zions Bank, Major Sponsors Summit County Recreation, Arts, and Parks Program, Salt Lake County and the Salt Lake Convention and Visitors Bureau, with in-kind support from City Weekly, KRCL 90.9 FM Community Radio, KXRK “X96” 96.3 FM, Park City Film Series, Park City Marriott, ParkCityWeek.com and UtahFM.

Peter Golub, a renowned composer of numerous works for the theatre, film, ballet and concert hall, has been director of Sundance Institute’s Film Music Program since 1998. His Broadway credits include Come Back, Little Sheba (directed by Michael Pressman, with S. Epatha Merkersen, who was nominated for the 2008 Tony Award), Hedda Gabler (directed by Nicholas Marin, with Kate Burton), and Suddenly Last Summer (directed by Mark Brokaw, with Blythe Danner). In addition to Frozen River, he composed music for the documentaries Wordplay and I.O.U.S.A., both directed by Patrick Creadon and both shown at the Sundance Film Festival. Golub was awarded the Classic Contribution Award by BMI as well as their 2008 Vision Award. He is the recipient of a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, as well as grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, Meet-the-Composer, and New York Foundation for the Arts. He serves on the Board of the American Music Center.

Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is a not-for-profit organization that fosters the development of original storytelling in film and theatre, and presents the annual Sundance Film Festival. Internationally recognized for its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, film composers, playwrights and theatre artists, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Angels in America, Spring Awakening, Boys Don’t Cry, Sin Nombre and Born into Brothels.

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