FilmMusicSite.com: Composer Talk

Raphaelle Thibaut is a French composer who started already playing the piano at the age of 4. She graduated the music conservatory of Lille in 2002. 2021 was a landmark year for her because she wrote the score for the Emmy Award-winning Disney+/National Geographic nature docuseries Secrets of the Wales. She continued with projects such as the documentary Introducing, Selma Blair, Fantastic Beasts: A Natural History, Tomb Hunters, Wild Dogs, Three Mothers and many more. In 2023 she wrote music for the Netflix series Heart of Invictus and Timeless Heroes: Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford for Lucas film and Disney+. Recently she worked on the Disneynature film Sea Lions of the Galapagos which is released on Disney+.

In this episode of Composer Talk Raphaelle Thibaut talks about how she got into filmscoring. We talk in-depth about her music for the Disneynature film Sea Lions of the Galapagos. She told me how she created this beautiful score. 

Enjoy listening this episode of Composer Talk!

Raashi Kulkarni is a composer, classical pianist, and flautist based in Los Angeles. She has established a distinct compositional voice that can be heard across a variety of genres including drama, comedy, science fiction, adventure, thriller, action, and animation. Raashi’s global perspective, study of different music disciplines, and passion for storytelling have been instrumental in the compositions she has developed for a vast spectrum of film and television projects. She has written music for films such as Wedding Season, Barefoot Empress, World’s Best, the documentary iFine: Beauty and many more. Her latest film is A Nice Indian Boy, directed by Rohan Sethi.

In this edition of Composer Talk Raashi talks about her passion for music and how it was to work on different superhero series with Blake Neely. We also zoom in on her music for the film A Nice Indian Boy, a blend of Western orchestral traditions and added with rich Indian musical elements.

Enjoy listening to this new episode of Composer Talk!

Photo credit: Betsy Newman

Filmmusicsite.com has had the opportunity to talk to composers Diego and Lionel Baldenweg. he siblings Diego Baldenweg with Nora Baldenweg & Lionel Baldenweg are a Swiss/Australian composer team. The Baldenwegs are a very versatile team and have composed unique scores for a wide range of different film genres. Their contemporary sound often blends theme based orchestral compositions with a palette of unique instruments and electronic sound scapes. In 2019 they were nominated for a Public Choice Award at the WSA for the film Zwingli. In 2024 they were nominated twice for a WSA with the film In the Land of Saints and Sinners. One time for a Public Choice award and one time for the Discovery of the Year Award. They have written music for films and series such as The Life Underground, The Unlisted, Head Full of Honey, Born to Spy, In the Land of Saints and Sinners, Home is the Ocean, Aiming High and many more. One of their latest films is The Safe House, a film which had it’s world premiere at the Berlinale Film Festival.

In this new edition of Composer Talk Diego and Lionel Baldenweg talk in-depth about their music for the film The Safe House (La Cache). You’ll get to know from where the idea came to create a jazz score and how it was developed. 

Check out this really interesting conversation with the Baldenweg brothers.

Photo credit: Jeroen Willems

Tom Howe is a UK born composer who is a multi-instrumentalist. He writes large-scale orchestral scores, which he can easily combine with his talents in writing pop and rock music, and electronic sound design. Tom is not only a composer but also a songwriter who co-wrote f.i. the Emmy-nominated Ted Lasso theme, with Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons. Tom Howe has scored over 100 projects for film and television. His projects include Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso and Shrinking, Amazon Prime’s Daisy Jones and the Six, Focus Features’ Polite Society and Book Club: The Next Chapter, and Paramount+ series Knuckles. He worked together with the Aardman animation studio on films such as Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon and Early Man. He has most recently scored the Dreamworks’ animated film Dog Man. 

In this new edition of Composer Talk composer Tom Howe talks in-depth about his music for the animation film Dog Man. A film which is two weeks in a row number one at the box office. Next to Dog Man Tom also talks about his work for season two of the Apple TV+ serie Shrinking. 

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Hannes De Maeyer is one of Belgium’s most versatile composers, best known for his collaboration with director duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. They worked together on films such as  Patser, Rebel, Black, Gangsta. Hannes also collaborated with director Dries Vos on projects such as the drama Professor T, both the Belgian as the English version. His work ranges from contemporary electronic scores such as Women of the Night and The Racer with pop and hip hop influences, to rich, orchestral and symphonic works such as Torpedo and Immenhof. Hannes wrote the score of the psychological thriller series The Couple Next Door, which just premiered on Starz. Hannes De Maeyer also co-wrote the music for the Channel 4 crime series Patience with composer Ruben De Gheselle. On February 19th the sequel to Gangsta will be released for which Hannes wrote the music.

In this new episode of Composer Talk composer Hannes De Maeyer talks about his music for The Couple Next Door. He also talks about working with composer Ruben De Gheselle on the music for Patience. Next to that he tells what to expect from Patsers, the sequel to Gansta (Patser)! You can listen to a short exclusive clip from that score.

Enjoy listening to this new Composer Talk!

Atli Örvarsson is an acclaimed Icelandic film and TV composer, conductor, and musician, with a vast body of work spanning film, television and video games. He has collaborated with artists including Hans Zimmer, RZA, Ólafur Arnalds, Khalid, and Talos. Örvarsson’s film credits include the political thriller 'Vantage Point,' Netflix’s ‘Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga,’ ‘The Hitman’s Bodyguard’ and its sequel ‘The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard.’His television composing credits including Apple TV’s ‘Defending Jacob’ and long-running procedurals like NBC’s ‘Chicago Fire’, ‘Chicago P.D.’, ‘Chicago Med’, and ‘Chicago Justice’, along with the CBS ‘FBI’, ‘FBI: International’, and ‘FBI: Most Wanted.’ In 2023 he wrote the music for the acclaimed Apple TV+ series Silo. Now airing on Apple TV is the show’s second season for which Atli wrote the music.

In this new episode of Composer Talk Atli Örvarsson talks about his music for the Apple TV+ serie Silo, about how it was to build the musical world for Silo. We also talk about his initiative INNI and his collaboration with SinfoniaNord orchestra.

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Ruben De Gheselle is an award-winning film and television composer who lives in Belgium. With a background in contemporary classical music, he knows how to create magic with just a few notes. With his intimate and hypnotic scores, he has contributed to several international productions, such as “Clara Sola,” which was selected for Cannes, the DOC NYC-nominated film “A Cops and Robbers Story,” the Golden Horses Awards-nominated “Tiong Bahru Social Club” and the Cannes-series-winning series “Lockdown. His most recent projects include the Belgian-Irish co-production series “Northern Lights,” the documentary “A Cautionary Tale,” or “There Was, There Was Not”. Moreover, Ruben just finished the music for the brand new British crime series 'Patience' (in co-composition with Hannes De Maeyer) for Channel 4 and is currently working on the music for the German series 'Verlangen' (co-composition with Eloi Ragot) and the Irish children's series 'Showkids' by Hugh O’Conor. Recently he wrote the music to Young Hearts, his first ever full feature film directed by Anthony Schatteman.

In this new episode of Composer Talk Belgian composer Ruben De Gheselle talks about his score for the film Young Hearts. He wrote a beautiful score for this coming of age story. Next to that Ruben is very busy with other projects like Patience, Showkids and Verlangen. He gives us a preview on what to expect.

Check out this first Composer Talk of 2025!

Dave Metzger is a seasoned composer and a true Disney veteran, Dave’s extensive experience as an orchestrator and composer includes projects such as Wish, Frozen (1&2), Moana, Tarzan and Brother Bear. He is also a highly regarded song arranger and orchestrater, having crafted the songs for many films, including the Academy Award winning “Frozen”, “Tarzan”, “Frozen 2”, “Moana”, “Wish”, and “Spirited”. Many of the songs, film soundtracks and Broadway cast albums that Dave has worked on have won Academy, Grammy, and Tony Awards – among them “Let It Go” from “Frozen”, “How Far I’ll Go” from “Moana”, “You’ll Be In My Heart” from “Tarzan”, the “Tarzan” and “Frozen” soundtracks, and the cast album from “The Lion King”. Dave Metzger was the perfect choice to write the music for Mufasa: The Lion King

Composer Talk Dave Metzger talks about his score for Mufasa: The Lion King but we also go back to the beginning when he got the job to work on the Broadway Musical of the Lion King. Dave talks about his music for the Disney Animation Studio film Wish and the many songs he worked upon in the past.

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John Powell is an Oscar nominated composer who writes music for film. He is born in the UK and lives in Los Angeles. He has written music for more than 90 films and worked with directors such as John Woo, Ron Howard, Paul Greengrass, Joe Wright, James Mangold, George Miller, Doug Liman, Dean Deblois and many more. He wrote music for films such as Face Off, the Jason Bourne trilogy, Solo: A Star Wars Story, the 3 How to Train Your Dragon movies, Ferdinand, Mr and Mrs Smith, Still and many more. This year John wrote the score to the animation films Thelma the Unicorn and That Christmas. John also worked on the music for the hit musical Wicked for which the first part has just been released and is already becoming the highest grossing musical in America and the film is loved all around the world.

In this new episode of Composer Talk composer John Powell talks in-depth about his music for the hit musical Wicked! We deepdive in his Christmas score for the Netflix film That Christmas and look forward to 2025 for his score to Wicked part 2 and How to Train Your Dragon (live action).

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Photo credit: Rebecca Morellato

Mark Mancina is a three-time Grammy Award Winning American film composer and Tony Nominated music producer. Mancina has scored over sixty films and television series including Speed, Bad Boys, Twister, Training Day, Con Air, Criminal Minds, Blood+, Shooter, August Rush, Planes, and recently Clint Eastwood drama Juror #2.

He has collaborated with Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS), composing scores for Moana, Brother Bear, and Tarzan. He also produced the original songs written by Elton John and Tim Rice for the 1994 blockbuster The Lion King. He also produced songs for upcoming prequel Mufasa. One of his latest scores is the music for the film Moana 2, which is currently playing in cinemas everywhere.

In this new Composer Talk Mark talks about his work on Moana to and how it was to collaborate with Opetaia Foa’i and Emily Bear. He also gives us an insight on working with Clint Eastwood on Juror #2 and the upcoming songs he worked upon with Lin-Manuel Miranda for Mufasa. Next to that we look back at his work on The Lion King Musical!

Enjoy listening to this new Composer Talk

Photo credit: Larry Mah