Current Projects | Dragons and Rachmaninoff

One of the many tremendous connections I made while at USC was with an animation student named Carolyn Chrisman. I scored a project for her entitled Evenfall, which ended up being nominated for a Student Academy Award. If you haven't already seen it, the video is posted on my website. Scored for strings, harp, and flute. One of my favorites.

I was delighted when Ms. Chrisman contacted me for help on her senior thesis, an animation titled Reversal of the Heart, which recounts the tale of a mother dragon and her baby. This film would be an animation set to the first movement of the Rachmaninoff 2nd Piano Concerto - that is, she was animating to an already written/recorded piece of music. What was needed from me was a piano intro for the beginning that would start the story off and lead into the concerto. It was an interesting task for numerous reasons, the most pressing being how the hell one introduces Rachmaninoff. After mulling over it for a bit, I decided that my job was to encapsulate the drama while creating a piece of music as different from the Rach as possible so that its entrance would have maximum impact. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the Rach, it begins with the solo piano very low in its register playing an ominous (and so utterly idiomatic) chord progression executed in a strong, forceful, almost march-like manner. This meant that my piece had to be light, lilting, and in the high register of the piano. Having Carolyn's work for inspiration made it a very easy and rewarding exercise for me. The video below shows the animatic (sketch) I was given to work with. You'll hear my music at the beginning and will notice both the change in the story and the music when the Rach enters.