School of Music, University of Leeds

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Article Key

Undergraduate

Postgraduate

Research

Staff

Concert

Alumni

Concerts: November 2010

This month's listings:

5th: New Tunes on Old Fiddles II
9th-13th: West Side Story
10th: Alexander Schimpf
12th: Florian Kitt & Aima Maria Labra-Makk
16th: Carpe Diem Quartet
17th: Sergey Taneyev's 'Oresteia'
19th: Nataliya Kompaniyets-Jouri
19th: Music for Gamelan
21st: Monteverdi Vespers 1610
24th: Student Showcase
26th: New Tunes on Old Fiddles III

Alumni

Each month we'll feature a School of Music alumnus and see where they're at career, performance or otherwise!

This month we're focussing on Ilan Eshkeri (BA Music and English, 1999).

Ilan recently returned to the school as keynote speaker at the school's Film Music Conference. Professor David Cooper, Dean of the Faculty of PVAC, took the opportunity to interview Ilan as part of the conference's opening address.

Ilan works as a composer and orchestrator in the film industry..

Click to read Ilan's story..

Ilan is a British film composer who has established himself as an exciting young talent in the world of film music. Born in London into a musical family, Ilan grew up playing violin and later took up playing guitar in bands. He studied Music and English literature at Leeds University, during which time he also worked with film composer Ed Shearmur learning first-hand the technique of film composition. After graduating, he went on to work with other film composers such as Michael Kamen and Hans Zimmer. At this time Ilan began scoring his own projects, and his talent for creating cinematic music on a limited budget soon gained him recognition within the film industry.

When Kamen passed away in 2001, Ilan played a major role in completing the final score for the feature animation 'Back to Gaya'. As a result, Ilan was asked to score 'Layer Cake' directed by Matthew Vaughn and starring Daniel Craig, which became a box office hit and got Ilan a nomination for 'Discovery of the Year' at the world soundtrack awards. This marked the beginning of Ilan's working relationship with Vaughn, and in 2007, Ilan composed his award-winning score for 'Stardust', starring Robert De Niro, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Their collaboration continues in 2009 with the adaptation of the 'Kick Ass' comic series.

Other scores include 'Hannibal Rising' directed by Peter Webber and produced by Dino De Laurentiis and most recently the score for 'The Young Victoria', Jean-Marc Vallee's stunning dramatisation about Queen Victoria's early reign, starring Emily Blunt. Earlier in the year Ilan scored Nick Moran's directorial debut, the darkly comic Joe Meek biopic 'Telstar', starring Con O'Neil and Kevin Spacey. Ilan is currently working with Joel Silver and the Wachowski brothers scoring 'Ninja Assassin' directed by James McTiegue.

Ilan has also collaborated with various songwriters; he worked with Annie Lennox re-arranging some of her best known songs to critical acclaim, such as 'Sweet Dreams' and 'Here Comes the Rain Again' for orchestra and band. He has been on tour supporting David Gilmour and programmed strings on Gilmour's hit solo album 'On An Island.' Ilan also co-wrote the international hit single 'Rule The World' with Take That.

Ilan's style demonstrates his love of orchestral music and classic film scores as well as contemporary music; his music prioritises authenticity, utilising real instruments and the integrity of live performance. Working with real musicians, whether acoustic or electronic is at the core of Ilan's philosophy and he holds close affiliations with many outstanding musicians, working in partnership with them during the creative process. In his view, if music is the soul of a movie then capturing an emotional performance is key to its success.

http://ilaneshkeri.com

Got a story?

If you're an alumnus, current student, concert series performer (past or present) and you'd like to share some news or tell us about an event then we'd love to hear from you.

Drop us a line at:

musicnews@leeds.ac.uk

‘Rotten song’ makes pick of the week!

A BBC Radio 4 programme on the variety songwriters Weston and Lee included a contribution from Professor Derek Scott, the new Head of the department.

Weston and Lee are best known for their composition ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’ and their wider output was commemorated in a broadcast entitled Oh My, What a Rotten Song! which went out in June.

The programme, fronted by Michael Rosen, caught the attention of Observer critic Stephanie Billen who made it her radio choice that week.

Date Published: 10 June 2009
Keywords: staff, scott, weston and lee

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