SEUNGHYUN CHOI WILL SCORE NEW KOREAN FILM RUNAWAY COP
Seunghyun Choi, a current film scoring student, has been contracted to score the new Korean comedy, “Runway Cop”, directed by Terra Shin. This will be their third collaboration, following “My Girlfriend is an Agent” and “Black House”. Seunghyun holds an impressive background in film music, having written scores for over twenty features films, having also collaborated with critically acclaimed director Chan-wook Park on the films “Oldboy”, and “Lady Vengeance”.
COMPOSER YEA-KYUNG CHUNG NOMINATED FOR "KOREAN MUSICAL AWARDS"
Yea-kyung Chung, a current film scoring student, recently wrote the music to a Korean musical adapted from the Herman Melville novel, Moby Dick. Moby Dick: An Actor-Musician Musical takes six musicians which were trained as actors specifically for this musical. Yea-kyung explains the creativity behind the characters, “I gave a double bass player the role, because the instrument is huge and make various sounds. Ahab, the captain, is performed by a cellist, because the captain has an artificial limb which is shown as a cello's pin. Queequeg, a man from the wild has a spear, so he should be a violinist to express the spear. Like this, all characters are matched to their own instruments. And their mental changes are expressed by their instruments.”
The musical was nominated for the 2011 Korea Musical Awards in five categories: Best Musical, Best Adaptation, Best Direction, Best Scenic Design and Best Composition, winning one for Best Scenic Design.
Discussions and Demos
- Howard Shore on his score for Lord of the Rings
- State of the Art: Post-Production at Sound One
On a recent Thursday evening and Friday afternoon, our film scoring majors were invited to two remarkable roundtables and discussions featuring Howard Shore and three key post-practitioners in the industry. On Thursday evening, an intimate audience at the Paley Media center were privy to a remarkable and insightful interview with Howard Shore, on his score for Lord of The Rings. In the lengthy question and answer period following, our students posed eloquent and probing questions which enhanced an evening that already served as a rare window into the compositional process.
On Friday afternoon, Michael Barry, one of the most renowned re-recording mixers (Men in Black, Fargo) in the feature film industry, invited twenty students for a two-hour private presentation in the main studio of 'Sound One,' in the Brill Building. In tandem with score recordings/mixer Lawrence Manchester (Howard Shore's recording engineer and Steinhardt Music Tech graduate) and the venerable Music Editor Gedney Webb, they screened film clips, provided demonstrations, and walked students through the plethora of their creative post-production tasks. This provided an intimate and detailed perspective that revealed some of the collaborative processes that undergird post-production processes and inform a film's final sound mix. It was eye-opening and it was witnessed under pristine conditions. In the course of the afternoon, Barry, Manchester, and Webb fielded an array of student's questions. One of our students commented: "That was the most relevant and applicable 'extra-curricular' event I've attended at NYU. All three guys were so interesting and intelligent and helpful."
John Jesensky is a NYC based composer and screenwriter, and holds a BM in composition from the Hartt School of Music where he studied with Larry Alan Smith and Joseph Turrin. At Steinhardt, John has studied with Sonny Kompanek and Ira Newborn. Jesensky’s concert works include Time Dances, September, Plan 9, Song Cycle for Soprano and String Quintet, Images of New England and Fanfare for Tuba Ensemble. His film scores include El Sueño (Cannes Film Festival), Take Out (Best Short – La Gona Film Festival), and Panacea (Best Student Film – Barebones Film Festival), Beautiful Addiction, Peeping Tom, Santa’s Last Stop and The Test. Currently, John is preparing to score the feature film, Containment, which he co-authored with Joe Russo.
Gabriel Hays composes songs, music for media, and concert music. He scored the upcoming indie feature A Girl, A Guy a Space Helmet. He contributed music to an episode of Oprah Winfrey’s new series Masterclass on her OWN network, featuring Maya Angelou. His band and songwriting outlet Shortwave Sunshine completed a new CD The Breakers (June 2010) that explores the contradictions of a New Mexican living in Brooklyn. Gabriel has toured North America, Europe and Australia as a keyboardist and songwriter playing in a diverse range of styles. Venues include The Montreal Jazz Festival, The Joshua Tree Music Festival, Webster Hall, and Symphony Space among others. He has performed/recorded with artists Tamarama (Universal Motown), Mieka Pauley, Akoya, and Kaleta (King Sunny Aide and Fela Kuti).
Dosia McKay composes with a diverse palette drawn from classical harmonies, jazz, pop, avant-garde, ambient soundscapes, and the lyricism of folk melodies from her native Poland. Her portfolio includes scores for film, dance, multimedia, and the concert hall that have been featured at the National Gallery of Art, the Knoxville Museum of Art, and at NYU in a variety of short TSOA films. Her concert music has been performed throughout the US and Spain. Her Farewell Dream Garden was a top-prize winner in the “2010 International Music in the Garden Composers’ Competition Wroclaw” in Kraków, and will be performed by The Orpheus Orchestra. Her composition Unveiling will be premiered in June by the North/South Consonance in New York City. 
