Sergi Casanelles
Program Manager for Screen Scoring, Faculty
Music and Performing Arts Professions
212-998-5764
Sergi Casanelles completed his Ph.D. in Film Music in 2015. His research focuses on how technology is utilized in music for the screen, and how using technology influences the aesthetics of screen music. He is especially interested in how technology serves to expand the timbral possibilities of music and new methodologies for analyzing music from a timbral perspective. In his dissertation, he defined the Hyperorchestra as a virtual ensemble that transcends reality through technology.
He has written concert music for piano, chamber ensembles, orchestra, electronics, as well as music for the screen. He has also worked as an orchestrator. He won the COM Radio Tutto Award for his solo piano piece Postlude to Chopin’s F minor Fantasy, and the III Orchestral Composition Competition Evaristo Fernández Blanco for his work From Hell: 4 scenes of Dante’s Divine Comedy. This premiere of this piece was awarded by the Spanish PRO SGAE as one of the top premieres of the year.
He holds a Ph.D. and an MM in Film Music Composition from NYU, a BM in Computer Science (UPC, Barcelona), and a BM in Composition (ESMuC, Barcelona) and a BM in Piano Performance (Liceu, Barcelona).
Currently teaching:
MPATC-UE 1049 / MPATC-GE 2049 - Contemporary Scoring
MPATC-UE 1500 - Film music: Historical and Aesthetic Perspectives
MPATC-UE 1248 - Composing for film and multimedia
MPATC-GE 2028 - Seminar in Composition: Advanced Scoring Toolkit (guest lecture)
Courses Taught at NYU:
MPATC-GE 2550 Screen Music: History, Analysis, and Aesthetics
MPATC-UE 1021/ 2321 Private music composition lessons
Selected Publications
Mixing as a Hyperorchestration tool (2016). Palgrave Handbook of Sound Design and Music in Screen Media: Integrated Soundtracks (eds) Liz Greene & Danijela Kulezic-Wilson, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
Ph.D. Thesis: The Hyperorchestra: A Study of a Virtual Ensemble in Film Music that Transcends Reality (2015)
Scoring Determinism: the score for Garland’s Devs. Music and the Moving Image Conference (MaMI) June 2021. [Conference Presentation]
Spectral transformation in drones as a harmonic device in Mr. Robot’s score. Music and the Moving Image Conference (MaMI) June 2020. [Conference Presentation]
Deciphering Timbre: a framework for analyzing contemporary screen music. Music and the Moving Image Conference (MaMI) June 2017. [Conference Presentation]
The Organ in Interstellar's soundtrack: a case study for analyzing the role of timbre in Contemporary screen music. Music and the Moving Image Conference (2016). [Conference Presentation]