Category: Soundtracks

The Final Year at Toronto International Film Festival

This weekend saw the premiere of Greg Barker’s new documentary ‘The Final year’ at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

The movie charts the astoundingly exhaustive efforts by Barak Obama’s diplomatic team to manage complex international problems. The unfettered access to Obama, John Kerry, Samantha Powers, Ben Rhodes and Susan Rice has created an incredible witness document to the often unseen and unappreciated efforts that operate below the surface of a successful administration.

Control Room at Abbey Road during our session. Photo by Nathan Azopardi

We recorded the string score in Abbey Road Studio One with an orchestra after not many weeks of writing. The soundtrack for this movie was one of the hardest challenges I’ve ever faced as a composer. Putting music under political figures is fraught with ethical and artistic problems. In documentary, the role of the composer is to frame the action, NOT tell the audience what to feel. I wrote entire soundtrack three times until I found a way in, that didn’t feel biased or dramatic.

The reviews from the Hollywood Reporter and Variety are here and I feel reflect the importance and peculiarity of this movie.

Here’s Ben Rhodes – Obama’s speechwriter – speaking after the premiere.

Here’s a track from the movie:

September 12, 2017
Kitty Nigiri – a new VR game

The cat in space, sushi catching, laser puzzle solving, fireball dodging, kitten saving, chopstick wielding, flying VR game your cat’s been dreaming about. Use your wits and dexterity, and prove yourself a potential champion…..

This brilliant VR game has been created by my Hatch friend Jacob Ellenberg and his team. It’s an extraordinarily different task writing music for an immersive environment….

You can download it here

From the official blurb:

It’s not about you. Sure, you want to use your wit, agility, Dynatron Shield and Cyberite Chopsticks to survive The Chef’s Deathtrap Dinner Theater. You’d do anything not to become the cuisine du jour, Feline Nigiri.

But it’s not about you. It’s about saving thousands of other hastily evolved cats, enslaved in gladiatorial games aboard the 1950’s leisure cruiser, the Starliner Fairbrother, a generation ship overdue for the promised land of Alpha Centauri. More importantly, it’s about saving the one you love, LeChat, held hostage to rein in your rebellious tendencies. Today is the day Kitty steps up, the day Kitty flips the script, the day Kitty rises as a champion, a hero, and a savior.

Kitty nigiri is a VR Danger room puzzler that challenges your wits and dexterity in its trials.

Hours of training that will stretch your mind, tickle your senses and get your heart racing. You play as kitty the engineered hybrid cat thrown into a life or death battle of will and cunning.

September 6, 2017
Quentin Robinson and Philip Sheppard

This is Quentin Robinson aka specialfx.

I think he’s someone who transcends what a person, a brain and a body can do.

I’ve performed with him a number of times, and this duet was at an event in Missoula when I spotted him and called him up onstage. He rose to the challenge and blew me out of the water.

His site is here.

August 16, 2017
Unkle – The Road – new album

The new UNKLE album is released Friday 18th August 2017.

Philip Sheppard has been working with UNKLE for the last 14 years, as a writer, cellist and orchestrator. Last year, Lavelle and Sheppard presented an UNKLE event at London’s Somerset House fusing the visuals of Stanley Kubrick and the band’s music.

After a rollercoaster twenty-five year career as an artist, curator and tastemaker, James Lavelle returns with UNKLE’s fifth studio album: The Road Part 1.

The Road Part 1 is a collection of fifteen new UNKLE tracks inspired following James’s curation of 2014’s Meltdown Festival at Southbank, their most successful to date.

The Road Part 1 is a collective creative venture by musicians including London folk-rock artist and poet Keaton Henson, Primal Scream’s Andrew Innes, The Duke Spirit’s Liela Moss, long time UNKLE collaborator Mark Lanegan, and Mercury prize nominee ESKA.

Lavelle also found new friends and collaborators in Queens of the Stone Age drummer Jon Theodore and Beck drummer Justin Stanley, who make definitive contributions throughout the record.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq0iplfH3l0&w=560&h=315]

Recorded in London and Los Angeles’ Pink Duck Studios, The Road Part 1 is the product of a desire to create something fresh and innovative, that also celebrates the rich history of UNKLE, and showcases a new wave of talent such as Elliott Power, Mïnk and YSEÉ.

Lavelle set out to make a record that tapped into the multicultural landscape of modern London. His mission was to unite the eclectic mix of ideas, cultures and genres under the UNKLE umbrella and create something unique.

James Lavelle praises the role of collaboration, and its important at the core of the project:
“I hadn’t made a record in a long time, and the incarnation of UNKLE had changed in that now, it was me on my own. For that reason, I wanted to make a record that I hadn’t been able to before, going back to the roots of where I came from, with a foot in modern London”.

In July last year UNKLE released their first single in seven years. Lavelle teamed up with Elliott Power, Mïnk and YSEÉ for the gospel infused Cowboys or Indians. Followed by Sick Lullaby in February 2017, his second collaboration with Keaton Henson. Sick Lullaby is tender and cinematic, a beautiful lullaby that empowers Henson’s delicate vocals.

The latest track from The Road Part 1, Looking For The Rain, is a call to arms in our turbulent modern world, written by Lavelle and Mark Lanegan.

The masterfully curated list of visual collaborators extends to the physical release of The Road Part 1, which will include a 36-page booklet featuring artwork by contemporary luminaries including Turner Prize nominee Nathan Coley, John Isaacs, David Nicholson, Norbert Schoerner, Doug Foster, Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones. It was designed by James Lavelle and up-and-coming designer George Stewart-Lockhart.

July 26, 2017
Moon Machines Released

Very happy to announce that after many requests, I have finally been able to release the Moon Machines soundtrack.

It’s initially available on Bandcamp here.

Here’s an extract from the series

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0llpEor_YAY&w=560&h=315]

I have a subscriber system there too – you’ll automatically get a number of my albums as well as new releases the moment they come out. I’m currently mixing my latest Abbey Road album and it will appear there first.

Philip Sheppard Moon Machines TV series soundtrack download

Chris Riley

July 21, 2017
Philip Sheppard Graphic Art available to buy

I’ve had many nice requests for prints of my graphic scores.

I’m happy to say I’m a featured artist on FineArtAmerica.com where my art can be ordered as not only prints, but phone cases, t shirts, beach towels (I know!).

Click here for my art.

star wars art for sale

music art for sale
graphic score art for sale

July 20, 2017

Legion of Brothers Premiere – Sundance Film Festival 2017

I’m delighted to present an extract from my new soundtrack for Greg Barker’s latest movie Legion of Brothers. We’ll be premiering at Sundance in a couple of weeks.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/288934779″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

This is the 10th year in a row that I’ve had a film featured at my favourite festival and marks a continuation of my work with Greg.

Here is the official blurb:

Immediately after the September 11 attacks, the United States government initiated a secret war in Afghanistan.

Fewer than a hundred Special Forces soldiers, building a coalition with the rebels of the Northern Alliance, faced off against the Taliban and succeeded in driving them out of power by the end of the year—with minimal coalition casualties and without conventional, large-scale military operations. Despite this victory, the U.S. and its allies soon became mired in a seemingly never-ending war.

Acclaimed filmmaker Greg Barker (Manhunt, 2013 Sundance Film Festival) expertly reveals this unexplored story, drawing on unprecedented access to several of the Green Berets who played pivotal roles in these covert missions.

Driven by a sense of justice, these soldiers left family members in the dark as they set off to serve as Afghanistan’s liberators, only to confront the tragic realities of war.

Reflecting on their experiences—and on the brothers-in-arms they lost—these elite soldiers offer at once a riveting celebration of valor and a sobering, cautionary tale.

Director Greg Barker
Producers John Battsek Greg Barker Peter Bergen Tresha Mabile
Editor Robin Schwartz
Director Of Photography Frank-Peter Lehmann
Composer Philip Sheppard
Executive Producers Amy Entails Vinnie Malhotra
Supervising Producer Courtney Sexton
Co Producer Diane Becker
Associate Producer Tyler Gurd
Production Coordinator Ann Rogers

TIME & DATE	LOCATION	TICKETS
2:30 PM SAT 1/21	THE MARC	VIEW ON SCHEDULE (T8788)
12:30 PM MON 1/23	REDSTONE CINEMA 1	VIEW ON SCHEDULE (T9259)
8:30 PM SAT 1/28	PROSPECTOR SQUARE THEATRE	VIEW ON SCHEDULE (T9261)
6:15 PM SUN 1/29	THE GRAND THEATRE	VIEW ON SCHEDULE (T8625)

January 4, 2017

Somewhere along the edge track by track – You Will Fly

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/281630843″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]You Will Fly (For Prof Brian Cox) –

This is a track from my new album – Somewhere Along The Edge. The album was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in September 2016 and is my first studio album away from a specific movies soundtrack for some time.
Each track is dedicated to someone who lives fully at the edge of life— whether explorers, artists, travellers, thinkers…

Professor Brian Cox is a scientist with whom I worked on the groundbreaking Human Universe series. He’s one of the world’s great communicators, a super musician and one of the brains behind developments at the CERN particle accelerator.

His greatest quality though is to convey goosebumps through the way he immerses himself in his subject. Like the physicist Richard Feynman, Brian has the fizzing energy of a man whose mission centres around conveying the wonder of our very existence.

I wrote You Will Fly by way of thanks to him.

Here are a couple of extracts from the films we made – using my music:

https://youtu.be/74woCKzVEIc?list=PL5A4nPQbUF8AYyl_xiwB0PyyYYGBzm4iL

https://youtu.be/E43-CfukEgs?list=PL5A4nPQbUF8AYyl_xiwB0PyyYYGBzm4iL

If you would like a free review copy of my album then please comment below and I’ll send you a code by return.

Philip Sheppard October 2016

Somewhere Along The Edge on iTunes
https://exit.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fitun.es%2Fus%2F1S4Teb
Somewhere Along The Edge on Bandcamp
http://philipsheppard.bandcamp.com/…/somewhere-along-the-ed…
Somewhere Along The Edge On Spotify

October 8, 2016
Somewhere Along The Edge- track by track – part one

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/281054113″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]
This is a track from my new album – Somewhere Along The Edge. The album was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in September 2016 and is my first studio album away from a specific movies soundtrack for some time.
Each track is dedicated to someone who lives fully at the edge of life— whether explorers, artists, travellers, thinkers…
This is dedicated to the amazing artist, technologist, fellow cellist, drone pilot, underwater photographer and more importantly, great friend, Eric Cheng.
His photography is exquisite – echengphoto.com/index

If you would like a free review copy then please comment below and I’ll send you a code by return.

Philip Sheppard October 2016

Somewhere Along The Edge on iTunes
https://exit.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fitun.es%2Fus%2F1S4Teb
Somewhere Along The Edge on Bandcamp
http://philipsheppard.bandcamp.com/…/somewhere-along-the-ed…
Somewhere Along The Edge On Spotify

October 7, 2016
Keep Quiet at TriBeCa Film Festival

I’ve been working on the soundtrack to an incredible documentary called ‘Keep Quiet’ which has just been selected to premiere at New York’s prestigious TriBeCa Film Festival.

The film concerns a passionate anti-Semite, Csanád Szegedi who was a rising star in Hungary’s far-right party – Jobbik – until he discovered his family’s extraordinary secret…

His maternal grandparents were Jewish.

“I couldn’t believe it, I just couldn’t believe it,” says Szegedi, still perhaps shaken by the ultimate branding of Jewish hatred and persecution. “I thought, this is the worst thing that could ever happen – there couldn’t ever be anything worse than this.” –Daily Telegraph profile

This extraordinary revelation prompts an unlikely, but seemingly genuine and heartfelt conversion from anti-Semite to Orthodox Jew.

My soundtrack was largely recorded live at Abbey Road Studio 2 – with Gordon Davidson engineering fantastically. It’s written for solo cello and based around a scordatura technique – that’s when an instruments’ strings are tuned in an unlikely fashion rendering weird overtones and resonances.

The film’s director Sam Blair and producer Alex Holder were clear from day one that the score needed to be unsettled, fragile, airy and peculiar – in the best sense of the word. Editor Ben Stark did an incredible job at hearing beyond my sketches, and the results are a real departure for me. Some of the music from the film is below.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/127153238″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

I’m immensely grateful to John Battsek and Nicole Stott for yet another Passion project that breaks the mould.

Film website here.

CAST & CREDITS

Director: Joseph Martin, Sam Blair
Producer: Alex Holder, Danielle Clark, Nicole Stott
Editor: Kim Gaster, Ben Stark
Cinematographer: Márton Vízkelety
Executive Producer: John Battsek
Composer: Philip Sheppard
Cast: Csanad Szegedi, Chief Chabad Rabbi Boruch Oberlander, Anne Applebaum, Eva ‘Bobby’ Neumann, Katalin Molnár Szegediné

CONTACTS

Press Contact
Susan Norget
Susan Norget Film Promotion
New York City, 10013
Phone: 212 431 0090
susan@norget.com

March 2, 2016
Being Bold, Being like Harry Perry
That’s Harry Perry. The world’s boldest musician.

He’s the one on the left.

I’m the pasty looking Brit on the right, giving him a few tips on how to be less introverted. *ahem*

Well actually, I’m getting an important life lesson right there.

Here’s a guy who earns a (damn good) living, playing guitar, in the sunshine, whilst keeping phenomenally fit.

He’s not a particularly shy chap.

In fact, he’s the definition of bold.

And it works.

And I always need more of that.

As a musician, it’s all too easy to be conventional, not stick your head above the parapet and toe a conventional line.

Despite having been a performer for years I was always terrified of standing out, being different or not knowing exactly what I was going to do on stage in a performance.

In short I had absolutely zero boldness. Nada. Nothing. Whilst a student at the Royal Academy of Music, I put the conservative into conservatoire.

I was obscenely square even in classical music terms.

The breakthrough for me came from meeting an insanely great jazz pianist, Keith Tippett. He encouraged me to improvise entire concerts.

(Side note: Improvisation is a word with many negative connotations so Keith’s neat trick is to re-label it Spontaneous Composition).

Now this is a terribly un-British thing to do. But it has been at the root of everything interesting that’s happened to me since then.

The feeling of walking onstage and not knowing what I’m about to play gives me a bigger high than any drug (even coffee), and, once you realise that the audience are more nervous than you are, is remarkably enjoyable (so long as you’ve practiced an insane amount).

My rules now are simple:
- Always say YES to something terrifying, then panic when you have time alone.
- When you are challenged to perform in a bizarre circumstance, always accept the dare…
Those split seconds of bravery will open the doors to your dreams…

So Be Bold Like Harry.
February 22, 2016
Avegant Glyph for Musicians Part One

This morning I’ve been playing some Paganini from an early edition, viewing through an Avegant Glyph driven by an Amazon Kindle Fire.

So far, it’s pretty thrilling experience and somewhat exciting to consider the possibilities of accessing archive material without expensive printing, using music stands, and having a truly focussed environment whilst working.

My normal day job is composing and recording film soundtracks. This is where such technology will fly, especially once reduced into a lens. The software I use to sequence, record and mix will all be effectively projected at a low level into the eye and will occupy no real estate in my studio.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to get back to mastering those octaves – technology won’t do that for me…

February 17, 2016
Star Wars Graphic Score

Sending this to JJ Abrams as thanks for using my track for promoting Star Wars.

I always write graphic scores for directors I like working with, and to work in some small way on on this franchise was beyond a dream.

Hope he likes it…

February 4, 2016
Crazy Gnarls Barkley Cover for Looped Cello

Here’s a cover of ‘Crazy’ by Gnarls Barkley that I performed recently at the COP21 Summit in Paris. Just recorded this to get warmed up for a busy set of film sessions.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/240349424″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

January 4, 2016
Compose Yourself – music composition game

I recently invented a game concerned with creative music play called Compose Yourself, and I’m really excited to share it with you.

I’m pretty sure that given the right tools, anybody can become a composer. It’s an easy thing to say, but actually I’m sure It’s true!

Some of the greatest musicians I’ve worked with, from the classical world, the film music world & the rock music world haven’t been able to read a note of music. It hasn’t stopped them from having full, successful and exciting musical lives.

When I was very young I really wanted to make music.
Actually, to be very honest with you, I just wanted to make lots of noise, and music seemed the best way to do this without getting into too much trouble.

At the age of three, I decided I was going to play the cello. It sounds like a cliche, but I heard a cello on the radio and fell in love with it. I actually remember the moment very clearly. It was the Elgar cello concerto played by Jacqueline Du Pré.

When I saw pictures of a cello and realised that it was much much bigger than a violin I was in love. That was it. I was going to play the cello…

That photo above is me on the day I had my first lesson. Looking back on it now I realise I was so lucky that my teacher also happened to be a kindergarten headteacher. She really knew how to make learning fun, and more importantly she knew how to play with music. Believe me, in the UK in the 70s, classical music was very very serious.

Not for fun. Nope…

The photo shows me playing a piece of music that she wrote and taught me in my first lesson. The piece was called Charlie and Fred and it was a simple thing that she’d written about her two pet Cavies. Most importantly, it was a piece of music about something I cared about, and it was written by someone I knew. Looking back on it now I realise that this was a really unusual way to teach music at the time, and it totally worked for me.

I loved playing her piece. It sounded amazing to me. I would play it for as many hours as I could. At no point didn’t occur to me that I was practising…
(Actually the way I played it at the time, it probably sounded horrible, but it’s still one of the most exciting moments of my life!).

I remember being so excited that I could make abstract noises that painted pictures in my mind, and to be honest, I still get very excited about this.

I’m now a film composer with more than 30 movie scores to my name, and I now get to paint pictures with music all day. I can’t begin to explain how much fun this is, but I can share the feeling a little bit.

This is the reason I invented Compose Yourself, so kids can make their own music – music that paints wonderful, colourful pictures in their minds.

Music can take kids on wild and exciting musical journeys, and they can make music about absolutely anything. One of the children I was teaching in Harlem number of years ago wrote to me after the composition project we were running.

I’ll never forget what he said,

‘… I like writing music. Music makes me feel important…’

Remember:

Kids have no idea that writing music is difficult (until adults point it out), so let’s keep it easy for them! This game is a powerful set of musical building blocks. The moment children make up their very first tune, they become Composers.

Here’s a little film about the game:

.Being a composer is like having a special power. A power that can make people dance, sing and cry (in a good way).
Now, that’s a real superpower….

October 12, 2015
Philip Sheppard live at Abbey Road

Philip Sheppard at C2MTL – Photo by Jimmy Hamelin

Here’s what I did after a long day of recording in Abbey Road one night last week. I’d been conducting the orchestra all day, and my brain was in another place.

I was speaking a language far from English, and things were swimming in front of my eyes. Rather than start heading home, I decided to decompress a bit.

There’s a deeply unusual documentary I’m writing at the moment, so I put the film on, Gordon, my fantastic engineer set everything to record and I got ready to play along. In the end, I ended up doing a 59 minute solo take on my cello – which is something of a record for me… It was a bit surprising seeing as my arms were really aching from conducting all day.

Anyway, here’s the result. (Don’t worry, it’s not 59 minutes).

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/127153238″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

July 21, 2015
Philip Sheppard scores Star Wars trailer

I’ve always loved Star Wars, so was rather delighted when Disney & JJ Abrams requested to use some music I’d composed for the new Star Wars Force Awakens trailer/ teaser (behind the scenes) film as revealed at Comic Con in San Diego last night.

The piece they used is a reworking of a track I wrote called ‘Epiphany’. It’s now called The Force Epiphany, and it’s on an EP I’m releasing called Strange News from Another Star. The wonderful images with the tracks are by my friend Trey Ratcliff.

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=3723737049 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=63b2cc tracklist=false artwork=small]

Here’s the trailer:

Philip Sheppard 2015

July 11, 2015
Joining Cirque du Soleil

No, that is not my normal cello…

Last month I travelled to Vegas to join Cirque Du Soleil for a special One-off show as a featured musician along with the wonderful John Legend.

The whole show was in aid of One Drop, and amazing charity established by Cirque to help those in need find water supplies.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure and I’m writing more about this very soon.

Here’s one of the pieces I played.[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/204219833″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

May 13, 2015
Human Universe Soundtrack

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/53995543″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]Here’s a preview of my score for Human Universe featuring Professor Brian Cox, which debuts tonight on BBC2.

We’re going to release the soundtrack on iTunes, Spotify and many other digital music platforms shortly.

If you’d like to receive a one-off email when this is released, just leave us a short message below naming your favourite track.

You’ll get a free download of one of my other film scores by way of thanks.

And, you’ll really be helping us, as the most popular track will become the first track on the album.

October 7, 2014
A Boat to Nowhere

Inspired by one of my friend Trey Ratcliff’s images, here’s ‘A Boat to Nowhere’ to be heard soon on the BBC ‘Human Universe’ soundtrack.

This was recorded at Abbey Road in August. [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/164243601″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

August 22, 2014
Human Universe

One of my tracks from the forthcoming series ‘Human Universe’ presented by Brian Cox, Featuring Evelyn Glennie with the ESO & Philip Sheppard. The image is another stunner by my dear friend Trey Ratcliff (who’s probably in the desert at Burning Man right now…).[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/164089022″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

August 21, 2014
Petra Theorum

Here’s a new track from my score for Brian Cox’s new series ‘The Human Universe'[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/163874307″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

August 20, 2014
Le Grand D

The title track of Le Grand Depart show, launching The 2014 Tour de France at Leeds Arena. Track by Philip Sheppard. Free download here.
Image courtesy of Trey Ratcliff. More of Trey’s amazing work here.[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/156825373″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]More news & tracks here…

Press release:

British conductor and composer Philip Sheppard will lead the orchestra and chorus ofOpera North at the opening ceremony of the 2014 Tour de France.

The ceremony will take place at the Leeds Arena this Thursday, and will precede the Yorkshire Grand Départ.

Sheppard, who has previously arranged and composed music for both the London 2012 and Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, will perform new work inspired by the sounds of cycling.

The orchestra will also accompany Yorkshire band Embrace, who is headlining the event.

Sheppard has scored 25 feature films, and as a cellist, has worked with the likes of David Bowie, Jarvis Cocker and Jeff Buckley. He is widely-known for using electronics in conjunction with classical music.

The ceremony takes place on 3 July.

July 1, 2014
Meltdown Philip Sheppard live at the Royal Festival Hall pt2

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/154592059″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]So.. here’s the next extract from the set I played as support for UNKLE at the Royal Festival Hall – opening for James Lavelle’s Meltdown Festival. This is my live cello-looped version of my orchestral piece ‘Final Day’.

Here’s the bizarre gear that goes into my gig bag along with the cello.

June 16, 2014
Meltdown UNKLE Live at the Royal Festival Hall

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/154364936″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]I played as support last night for UNKLE at the Royal Festival Hall opening for James Lavelle’s Meltdown Festival. Here’s my live cello-looped version of ‘Glow’ by UNKLE, a track I first worked on way back when we were recording Never, Never Land…

Here’s another track from the set.

I’ve been a long-term collaborator with James Lavelle since being invited in to the Never Never Land sessions with UNKLE to play acoustic and electric cello. Since then, I’ve performed on numerous tracks as a string player, and have been a co-writer on many album tracks.

My first impression of James and his working method has remained intact, save for the fact that over time he’s become a dear & trusted friend.

James is an alchemist.
He instinctively knows how to throw disparate personalities & elements together, resulting in beautiful dissonance and restless confluence.
At the time of the first sessions I was working as a classical cello professor at the Royal Academy of Music and James blew the doors off my recording life, giving voice to my wilder sonic personalities, encouraging me to stretch the potential of my musicianship.

I remember one day working on Beethoven sonatas at the Royal Academy, then getting in a cab up the road to a North London studio with James, Keith Flint, dry ice, strobes and a license to let rip in an all-night recording session. That’s living the dream…

June 14, 2014
Amazing Grace live at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/151169992″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

This is a live version of ‘Amazing Grace’ from my recent gig at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. It’s recorded using an 18th Century cello and a loop pedal. Hope you like it.

These are my favourite verses from the hymn.

Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who call’d me here below,
Will be forever mine.

May 25, 2014
NN Fest – Final Day Live looping

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/150891804″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]This is my closing piece from my set at the NNFest on 22nd may 2014 playing support for Toumani Diabaté. It’s recorded using an 18th Century cello and a Boss RC300 loop pedal with a DPA cello mic. Hope you like it…

May 23, 2014
Voyager’s message in a bottle

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/169148725″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]The Voyager Golden Discs are gramophone records which were attached to both Voyager spacecrafts, which were launched in 1977.

The discs contain a huge array of music and noises from Earth, as well as biometric information and scientific knowledge.

Inscribed on the discs are the words; ‘To the makers of music – all worlds, all times…’
Everything in my track is built from manipulated sounds from the gold discs attached to the Voyager space probes.
Hope you like it.

May 18, 2014
Solo set at James Lavelle’s Meltdown with UNKLE

Very very excited to announce that I’ve been invited to perform a solo set to kick off James Lavelle’s Meltdown 2014.

It’ll be a solo cello looping set in the Royal Festival Hall before I join the UNKLE line-up (my long-time conspirators) in the second half.

Nice article re the other artists here.

Hope you can come. It’s going to be different. In the meantime let me share a previous Meltdown experience with Jeff Buckley that changed my life entirely…

March 25, 2014
Exile – the Deer Valley mix

Here’s a new version of ‘Exile’ from ‘We are the Giant’ which has just opened at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. The reception for the film has been amazing and one reviewer has called the movie ‘… a devastating marvel…’ which has given all of us involved a great lift.

The view from where I’m based out here is so outrageously beautiful that I decided to annoy a number of passing skiers yesterday afternoon with my cello in the snow… If you were on the Jordanelle Blue Run in Deer Valley you have my apologies. The film above is the result…

January 20, 2014
Remembrance

The Parihaka children’s choir who resited an armed militia

I’ve just finished mixing the soundtrack for We Are The Giant, my latest score composed for Greg Barker. The film is premiering at the Sundance Film Festival next week. Our other films together, Sergio and Manhunt also received their first outings in Park City Utah. (Update – there’s a free track to download in this post)

I saw the rough cut of the film only fairly recently and knew I had to be involved.

I was going to say that this film is a call to arms, but, the overwhelming modus operandi of the Arab Spring protagonists portrayed is more of a call to militant peace.

A few years ago I was in Sundance when Banksy was premiering his Exit through the Gift Shop, and taking the opportunity to add some serious value to the walls of certain businesses along Main Street, Park City. I was excited when I spotted this early one morning:

Banksy at Sundance – photo by Philip Sheppard

He springs to mind as his now infamous image of a rioter hurling a bouquet would be an appropriate logo for the film. In one extraordinary sequence of Greg Barker’s movie, a tidal wave of protesters brandish long stem flowers, not batons or guns unlike the brutal thugs sent to disperse them.

The Arab Spring is a collective, rather misleading term for a groundswell of national protests that have emerged since 2010. It’s no coincidence that this time period correlates to the emergence of direct social messaging, a truly efficient way of negating the deathly hand of state propaganda.

This capacity to network peer-to-peer has also developed in tandem with phones becoming powerful recording devices, meaning that atrocities are now documented at a mere arm’s length, making them harder to suppress and easier to disseminate.

This means that some of the stories portrayed in We Are The Giant make for difficult viewing. In fact, this is a score I’ve had to compose when my kids are far from my studio. I want them to know that this is happening, but they’re just too young to see it in such graphic detail. Unfortunately many of the young people in the film have no such luxury of choice.

This isn’t a film about politics, it’s a film about us.

People like you and me.

People with kids, with friends to see, with school runs, with household bills, with exams, with mobiles, with meals to cook, with to-do lists, with all the pressures and joys of normal life – except the prospect of imprisonment, torture and death are just as normal and domesticated.

I urge you to see this film. It’ll probably make you angry, but will leave you with hope in the fact that some good people do great things.

I’ve gone for a radically different approach to building music for this movie, it just didn’t seem appropriate to use a conventional orchestra for such raw, real footage. I built lots of new instruments from found sounds, and approached the whole score as a single piece of audio design which morphs from harmony and melody into cascading walls of noise.

This a riot sequence:[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/128478525″ params=”color=ff6600&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

This is a sequence describing the historic standoff between the Māori Parihaka people and a huge armed militia in the mid 19th Century. The soldiers were dumbfounded by a children’s choir being the only line of defence that confronted them.[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/128478131″ params=”color=ff6600&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

This is a sequence about exile – loneliness & separation (You can download this track if you click through):[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/128478762″ params=”color=ff6600&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Sometimes music & flowers are the best weapons…

People who made this film happen:

Director: Greg Barker

Producers: John Battsek, Julie Goldman, Greg Barker

Co, Producer: Razan Ghalayini

Line Producer: Diane Becker

Cinematographers: Muhammad Hamdy, Frank-Peter Lehmann

Editor: Joshua Altman

Sound Mix: Monkeyland Audio

Composer: Philip Sheppard

Plus: major support from PrettyBird.

Philip Sheppard – new tracks available from here.

November 6, 2013
Some advice to young musicians

This Sunday is Remembrance Day here in the UK. Here’s a piece I wrote last week.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/118816851″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

October 24, 2013
A Wave for Dr Wave

Here’s a graphic score for a dear friend of mine whose name is Dr Wave…

[With apologies to Hiroshige!]

August 18, 2013
Acme Inc… Or how not to use a Ukelele

The Acme Keyboard Telegraph

My writing & recording studio is a library. This is not only because I draw great inspiration & solace from books – I mean you’ve never seen so many wartime Penguin Orangebacks in a row – but also because a wall full of books has great acoustic properties – it dampens the sound and (to my ear at least) bounces back a lovely diffuse quality in the instrument being recorded.[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/102458411″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]I have a shelf in front of my music stand which has stacks of everything I’m currently reading.

I’ve recently become somewhat obsessed with the work of Chris Ware, and a copy of his Acme Novelty Yearbook is permanently open for inspiration.

Studio bookstack

Whilst much of his work deals with melancholia & failure, there’s a healthy dose of influence from the adverts in early American magazines, as well as repeated references to Ragtime

.

This piece is a concerto for a single chord on a ukelele written after reading a chunk of this amazing book. Hope you like it…

July 25, 2013
Study of Life

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/99216818″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]Study of Life – a new track by Philip Sheppard. (solo clarinet by Pete Furniss)

I’m rather obsessed with other people’s notebooks. This image is an extract from Darwin’s notes concerning the variations in evolution of finches – core research upon the way to his extraordinary theories of evolution.

I’d like to think that if he’d had a computer (maybe something crafted by Mr Babbage…) he would still have laid everything out in ink, on fine paper first.

It’s so much easier to think in ink. Do you have a favourite journal?

I love Darwin’s ‘I think’ at the top of the page…

July 1, 2013
Radiomovies Roundup

It’s been a busy couple of weeks chez Sheppard with some new releases…

I wrote & recorded the string parts for Queens of the Stone Age album title track, Like Clockwork. This track also featured my mate James Lavelle. The album went straight in at number 1 in the charts (which was gratifying).

I’d also written for a very left field band called These New Puritans who I rate really highly. They divide critics as they’ve an uncompromising approach to music & performance. Their new album Field of Reeds came out last week. One of my heroes, Michael Van der Aa also worked on the album – great company to keep…

In the world of moving pictures I’ve been finishing composing the score to a film I can’t talk about as it’s horribly secret, but it’s involved creating a sound world involving glitchy electronica and paranoid soundscapes (no change there then..!).

I’m also featured as a soloist on the forthcoming Jason Statham film, Hummingbird, scored by my friend – the genius Dario Marianelli. It’s a violent yet sensitive film – and I’m providing some disturbed noises on electric cello for some of the more psychotic sequences. I drank a lot of Earl Grey in the studio that day…

June 24, 2013
Love Marilyn Premieres on HBO

Monday June 17th at 9pm on HBO sees the network premiere broadcast of Love, Marilyn. I wrote the soundtrack for this lovely film, and have compiled a playlist of some of the tracks:

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/6612291″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

More about the broadcast here.

Featuring F. Murray Abraham, Elizabeth Banks, Adrien Brody, Ellen Burstyn, Glenn Close, Hope Davis, Viola Davis, Jennifer Ehle, Ben Foster, Paul Giamatti, Jack Huston, Stephen Lang, Lindsay Lohan, Janet McTeer, Jeremy Piven, Oliver Platt, David Strathairn, Lili Taylor, Uma Thurman, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood. Written and directed by Liz Garbus; produced by Stanley Buchthal, Liz Garbus and Amy Hobby; executive producer, Anne Carey; executive producers, Olivier Courson, Harold Van Lier and Enrique Steiger; edited by Azin Samari; cinematography by Maryse Alberti; music by Philip Sheppard; co-producer, Julie Gaither.[wpvideo RcSINxwA]

June 11, 2013
Fantastic Mr Feynman

This Sunday sees the broadcast of Chris Riley’s wonderful account of the life of one of the great thinkers & polymaths of our time, Richard Feynman. I’ve written the music for the film. Here’s are a couple of tracks from the score;[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/91542152″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /][soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/91544836″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Feynman brilliantly embraced the concept of playing – playing with ideas until they resolved into simple models of extraordinary concepts.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyqleIxXTpw&feature=youtu.be]“But when it came time to do some research. I couldn’t get to work. I was a little tired; I was not interested; I couldn’t do research!… And then I thought to myself, “You know, what they think of you is so fantastic, it’s impossible to live up to it. You have no responsibility to live up to it!”… Then I had another thought; Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing – it didn’t have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics…. So I get this new attitude… I’m going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever. Withing a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air…. I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate… And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was ‘playing’ – working, really – with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos; my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned wonderful things. It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly…. There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.” –

Richard Feynman, excerpts from Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman

May 10, 2013
So let's begin

Morning in Monterey – the view from breakfast…

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/89153591″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

I’ve just returned from a blast of pure inspiration & friendships courtesy of the e.g., hosted in Monterey.

It’s very hard to articulate how much this annual get together means to me. Suffice to say, I’ve tried to put it into the music. Hope you like it.

April 23, 2013
So let’s begin

Morning in Monterey – the view from breakfast…

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/89153591″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

I’ve just returned from a blast of pure inspiration & friendships courtesy of the e.g., hosted in Monterey.

It’s very hard to articulate how much this annual get together means to me. Suffice to say, I’ve tried to put it into the music. Hope you like it.

April 23, 2013
Bending Light for Trey Ratcliff

Another stunning photo from Trey Ratcliff

A piece of music dedicated to Trey Ratcliff whose work I’ve loved for years.[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/87240788″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

He is a master of HDR Photography and I met him for the first time last year in Monterey.
This piece is recorded using tuned glass instruments and is an attempt to play with refraction, colour and shade in music.

I’ve no idea if it’s successful but it’s a new direction for me…

April 10, 2013
The girl who drifted by

Distant Hills by Cole Rise

Here’s a piece I’ve just written inspired by a fabulous photographer I know called Cole Rise. I love his air of magical realism… hyper-dreamy landscapes where gravity doesn’t quite work in the way it should…[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/86053920″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

April 2, 2013
The Melt

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/85212033″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]It’s hard to believe it’s nearly Easter. I love the biting cold thaw in the sunshine. The best light in the world…

Here’s a piece called ‘The Melt’. I hope you like it.

March 27, 2013
The haunting

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/84887312″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

March 25, 2013
Not so Silent Movies… Roxy Music Special!

I’m delighted to let you know that the next Not So Silent Movies… is going to feature two fantastic guests…
In this Roxy Music Special, the fabulous NSSM… house band are joined by Andy Mackay and Phil Manzanera from Roxy Music!
Pick up some popcorn and enjoy musical improvisations along to classic silent films. Perfect for all ages from kids to those who remember watching these films in their youth.

March 22, 2013
The wind across the downs

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/83960778″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

The Wind across the Downs by Philip Sheppard

March 19, 2013
Not So Silent Movies… with Talvin Singh

Talvin, Evelyn Glennie & Philip Sheppard – photo Julian Macedo

I’m very happy to announce that Talvin Singh has invited my group, Not So Silent Movies… to perform with him at the Royal Festival Hall on April 14th at 7pm, as part of the Alchemy Festival at the SouthBank Centre.

Not so Silent Movies… is my project which accompanies classic silent film comedies at monthly events at Kings Place. The musicians are extraordinary, as they improvise with no rehearsal, no sheet music, and no previewing of the films.

The Festival Hall group will include, Elspeth Hanson – violin, Pete Furniss – reeds, Mark Neary – bass, Hami – drums, Julia Thornton – harp and me – cello, all performing with Talvin Singh.

We’ll be accompanying a classic of silent Indian Cinema, which none of us will see until the performance itself…

If you’d like to join us, then tickets are available here.

March 18, 2013
And then she was gone…

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/82907257″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Here’s a cue from a film I wrote earlier in the year.

I’m using Pinterest to collate images to help me write and the above, haunting picture is on a board I’ve made to combat writer’s block (not something I’ve suffered from.. yet!). It seemed to chime with the mood of a piece I was remixing…

Or does it? Let me know what you think!

March 12, 2013
a New York kind of day

New York 1950 by Elliott Erwitt

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/82223084″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Here’s a piece called A New York kind of day. I met Elliott Erwitt in Monterey. What a lovely man. What a total genius.

Here’s a piece I was writing at the time. Hope you like it.

March 7, 2013
Velodrome

[youtube=http://youtu.be/wU5bBIRz-j0]Here’s a track I worked on back in the Summer with the Chemical Brothers. I never realised there was video for this… just spotted it!

It was written for the opening of the Velodrome at the London 2012 Olympics.

It features multitracked violins, cellos, treble viols, electric cello, table harp and a bit more cello just for luck.

©Philip Sheppard

February 19, 2013
Graphic Scores, pens, pencils & paper

Lisle’s 40th present…

The more I rely on computers to mix and master my music, the more I’m drawn back to pens, pencils, thick bonded paper, Moleskine notebooks, graphite pencils and watercolour blocks. As Marilyn Monroe said; ‘To think in ink..’.

There’s nothing like taking a line for a walk and feeling the resistance of the paper and the give of the pen to swerve you off into a more interesting place than you would have gone in the world of Qwerty.

I was cleaning my desk and I pulled out a copy of a piece I’d transcribed for a friend’s 40th. He’s a Geordie, so it’s an arrangement of ‘Oh Come ye from Newcastle’. He always wears strong glasses and a a cap, and as I was writing, my pen started to veer off into a picture of him..

From there it was a slippery slope to writing in terrible puns in the directions, Da Capo for the return to the baseball cap, the tricky bit along the chin is marked rather hairy, the chords on the mouth are marked as a drone…

I think the medieval calligraphers would have made a better fist of this, but it made him laugh…

[Let me know of any other picture scores in the comments & I can add them in]

© Philip Sheppard 2013

February 6, 2013
Graphic Scores, pens, pencils & paper

Lisle’s 40th present…

The more I rely on computers to mix and master my music, the more I’m drawn back to pens, pencils, thick bonded paper, Moleskine notebooks, graphite pencils and watercolour blocks. As Marilyn Monroe said; ‘To think in ink..’.

There’s nothing like taking a line for a walk and feeling the resistance of the paper and the give of the pen to swerve you off into a more interesting place than you would have gone in the world of Qwerty.

I was cleaning my desk and I pulled out a copy of a piece I’d transcribed for a friend’s 40th. He’s a Geordie, so it’s an arrangement of ‘Oh Come ye from Newcastle’. He always wears strong glasses and a a cap, and as I was writing, my pen started to veer off into a picture of him..

From there it was a slippery slope

February 6, 2013
Going loopy

My cello looping setup

My solo performing setup generally includes loop pedals, pitch shifters and reverb units.

I’m doing a lot of experimentation at the moment with my live setup, using acoustic & electric cellos, new custom built units as well as some exciting new effects pedals from Boss, Boomerang & Line 6. Before I plan a programme I always draw a new circuit/ wiring plan and however much I try to simplify things around my feet, they always end up verging on the complex..!

The sketch above is the setup I have in my studio at the moment… Looking a little tangled for my liking…

Here’s a short improvisation from a set I performed in Mexico a couple of months ago. The guest speakers prior to me had mentioned whale songs, volcanos and one of my favourite pieces, La Folia. Needless to say, all of them found their way in.

It’s been great to see Andrew Bird storming Sundance with a live set where he built songs up from live loops on violin using a parallel setup of Line 6 delay modellers, one tightly locked, the other more for floating ambient lines. You can watch it here.

Andrew Bird

The great thing is that the gadgetry he’s using is rendered unimportant by the emotional punch of the songs. It’s easy to get hung up on gear for its own sake, but if you’re not making someone laugh, cry or get the chills, it ain’t worth it…

TDNRE5PHSP2N

January 29, 2013
Across the Milky way

Here’s a track I wrote formerly for a programme called ‘Inside the Milky Way’. I’m gradually reworking the soundtrack for this series into fully developed pieces and releasing them on Bandcamp. Click here for more!

The image above is taken from a photo I took of a bowl my dear friend Josh Simpson made for me. He’s a total genius, and by coincidence has a strong space connection as his wife is Cmdr Cady Coleman, the astronaut!

January 18, 2013
Manhunt score at Sundance

This is my notebook for the score of the forthcoming documentary film ‘Manhunt’ directed by Greg Barker. The film premieres at Sundance 2013 this coming week and tells the story of the CIA’s hunt for Bin Laden. It’s a great counterpoint to Zero Dark Thirty as it shows the frustrations, errors and dangers faced by the largely female intelligence officers, aka ‘the Sisterhood’.
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/74934172″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/74933090″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
Here’s a track or two from the soundtrack I’ve written.

c 2013 Philip Sheppard

January 15, 2013
Play with fire

Burj Khalifa from my sound desk

This December I wrote & directed the music for the 2013 New Years Eve celebrations at the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The event was enormous & featured full symphony orchestra, orchestrated fountains, dancers, flame blasts and the most enormous pyrotechnic display I’ve ever seen.

The fireworks were timed to a piece I wrote which you can hear below called Play with Fire. You can see the pyro display at the youtube link below. Hope you like it…

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/74414559″ params=”color=5f00ff&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9kRCUny7RU]

January 10, 2013
Radiomovies news…

I’m on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row tonight to talk about music & journeys.
I’m with a total hero of mine – Adrian Utley from Portishead – both of us being interviewed by Mark Lawson.
Here’s a free track for you if you’d like to download it – click through to Soundcloud & it’s free.[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/5680720″ iframe=”true” /]
Last night saw the first ever collaboration between Impropera & Not so Silent Movies… at the wonderful Kings Place. We improvised a new score, and new operatic narrative to Nosferatu… well, it is nearly Halloween.
Our next event is on Sunday afternoon. Click here for more details.
Last month was great fun too – Jarvis Cocker, Dario Marianelli and John Etheridge joined our fabulous house band.
Here’s Gramophone magazine’s blog about it.
If you’d like to get more free tracks, or news of gigs – click here.

October 26, 2012
Fusional Fragments – a new ballet

[vimeo 51367971 w=500 h=281]

I had the very great pleasure of working with a great choreographer and friend of mine Marc Brew, and his astounding company, along with my favourite percussionist Evelyn Glennie when we devised ‘Fusional Fragments’ – a new ballet scored by Evelyn and myself.

The show was premiered at the Queen Elizabeth Hall as part of the Cultural Olympiad to a packed and happily raucous house. The event was filmed and the staging was all the more extraordinary due to Evelyn appearing onstage within the dance. Having worked with Evelyn extensively over the last couple of years, I’m constantly amazed at her willingness to just get stuck in to everything she does. Need I mention her leading the field of drummers at the 2012 Olympic Opening ceremony..?!

We’ve just performed together at the National Museum of Scotland along with the extraordinary artist Maria Rud. More on this soon…

In the meantime, here’s something I wrote (not music!) that was an initial sketch for the ballet above. Forgive my English (believe it or not it is my first language…).

Fractured Darkness

In a dark, broken dream,

Half-remembered dances spin from the ether.

Something is submerged

The old music box pulled from a Venetian canal

Plays a forgotten lovesong.

Footsteps amongst the ruins as

Fractured toys play a

Clockwork aria half-drowned

And yet the song survives.

Now a waltz

Amongst the shards of glass

Light flickers from the mirror

As the candles sputter in the gust

In this dark, broken dream,

I sing though my voice is rust

My body is rooted to the tiles of the floor

as the rain falls through the shattered rafters

A jolt…

And, yet another.

There is a way back.

This is only a dream

I am alive though I cannot ever wake

In this dark, broken dream,

I sing though my voice is rust.

I step amongst the glass

And settle with the dust.

October 18, 2012
The Peak

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/63156732″ params=”auto_play=false&show_artwork=true&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]Here’s a new track called ‘The Peak’. Hope you like it.

October 12, 2012
'Mosaic' from Love, Marilyn

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/60434018″ params=”” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
Here’s the title music from ‘Love, Marilyn’. We premiered the film at the Toronto International Film Festival to some lovely reviews and a huge audience.
It’s coming to the London Film Festival on the 14th October at the Odeon Leicester Square. More details soon…

September 19, 2012
‘Love, Marilyn’ premieres in Toronto

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/58833913″ params=”auto_play=false&show_artwork=true&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]Here’s a track from ‘Love, Marilyn’ – film I recently scored which premieres tonight at the Toronto International Film Festival.
It stars some super actors.

Here’s the blurb from the programme;

Marilyn Monroe invented a public persona that concealed a private side known only to her closest confidants. This is a woman who did not believe true love was possible, and yet sought it all her life. This is an actress who, at the height of her fame, abandoned Hollywood to study acting with Lee Strasberg because she wanted to be taken seriously. This is a wife who took pills because the husband she had saved from infamy no longer believed in her. Fifty years after her death, her creation still blazes brightly in our cultural imagination, while the creator continues to lurk in the shadows. Love, Marilyn brilliantly reverses this polarity, casting the icon aside and bringing the real woman to life.

Drawing on never-before-seen personal papers, diaries and letters, Academy Award®–nominated director Liz Garbus works with acclaimed actors to evoke the multiple aspects of the real Marilyn: passion, ambition, insecurity, soul-searching, power and fear. Elizabeth Banks, Ellen Burstyn, Glenn Close, Viola Davis, Jennifer Ehle, Lindsay Lohan, Lili Taylor, Uma Thurman, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood each appear on screen to enact Marilyn’s words. As Garbus re-invents the woman, she also reinvigorates the non-fiction form. It’s fascinating to watch such distinct interpretations of the same real-life character, and Garbus weaves these performances together, along with newly released outtakes, home movies, photos, and interviews with Monroe’s closest companions to create the most intimate picture yet of an American icon we all think we know.

Rounding out this portrait, Adrien Brody, Hope Davis, Paul Giamatti, David Strathairn and others bring to life the writings of Marilyn’s friends and admirers, completing the evocative image of this young woman who, over time, came to embrace life, friendship, and the possibility of her future. In Garbus’ film, Marilyn finally gets what she always yearned for: a great role.

September 12, 2012
Press release for Not So Silent Movies…

September 12, 2012
Express Tracks

[youtube=http://youtu.be/O3Zldg4j88A]I’ve just launched a new project with my friends The Milk and dubstep pioneer Benga. It’s a soundtrack to your journey if you’re travelling from Victoria to Gatwick. It’s called Espressivo.

It’s a free download with a ticket for the train (if you book online). There’s rather a clever site for it here. Benga and The Milk took my 35 minute track and re-imagined it in a totally new fashion…

I’ve always wanted to do something like this, ever since I first heard Night Mail, the early experimental film featuring Benjamin Britten and W.H.Auden. If you haven’t heard it recently, take a look here. [youtube=http://youtu.be/FkLoDg7e_ns]

I’ve always loved John Betjeman’s love letter to the Metropolitan Line, Metroland[youtube=http://youtu.be/LhIZlJgFgWk]

This film, Let’s go to Birmingham makes me laugh too… especially as I can glimpse my village at 960mph at one point! [youtube=http://youtu.be/NmPzB0qTy4M]

Hope you like it…!

June 25, 2012
Mayday! Not so Silent Movies…

[youtube http://youtu.be/Sxsg4oUuwA4]
This Sunday , 13 May 2012 – 3:00pm / Hall Two Kings Place

The Not So Silent musicians return to daringly perform spontaneous soundtracks to the world’s greatest silent films. No rehersals, no cheating and no safety nets; a combination which results in very happy musicans having a lot of fun onstage!

There will be no rehearsals. None of the musicians will have watched the films in advance. Improvisation before a live audience will begin as the film rolls… there must be a catch somewhere? Who would want to put themselves through it?

This is who!
Rafał Łuc accordian
Jamie Morrison drums (Noisettes)
Zak Eastop amazing horn wunderkind
Philip Sheppard cello (UNKLE, Jeff Buckley)
Elspeth Hanson violin (Bond)
Mark Neary bass guitar (The Hours, Baxter Drury)
Guy Pratt bass (Pink Floyd, Roxy Music)
Julia Thornton harp & percussion (Bryan Ferry, Solus3)

BOOK HERE!
This Sunday , 13 May 2012 – 3:00pm / Hall Two Kings Place

May 9, 2012
New string tracks

Old meets new!

Things have been crazy here… Most of the projects I’m involved in are super secret which is a bore because I can’t wait to tell you about them… Needless to say I’ve been in Abbey Road again with the wonderful LPO, as well as hopping across to Monterey to see friends at the EG conference in California… more on that later though.

Here are two new string tracks I recorded with Elspeth Hanson – the very super violinist… One’s based on La Folia (aka La Follia), the other is based on the Mozart A major violin concerto.
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/44973755″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=3d0ac7″ width=”100%” height=”81″ iframe=”false” /][soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/44973980″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=3d0ac7″ width=”100%” height=”81″ iframe=”false” /]It’s the first time I’ve used an Apogee Ensemble interface – and I’m blown away by the difference it’s made. It also makes a splendid resting place for my treble viol…!

May 1, 2012
Liquid architecture

There’s an oft quoted phrase that claims that architecture is frozen music. I like inverting that – music is liquid architecture. However, the blueprint above seems to have melted a little too much.

I just scanned an arrangement to email to a band and one of the sequences got a little fried as you can see. However, I’d like them to record it like this and see what happens…

A dead cert for the Classic FM playlist I reckon.

April 4, 2012
The shipping forecast goes to China…

There’s a lovely article here about the shipping forecast, which features contributions from BBC Radio 4 friends Zeb Soanes and Kathy Clugston. Here’s a snippet;

“It’s part of the fabric of this intangible thing called Britishness,” says Soanes.

“Just like red telephone boxes, Wimbledon, the chimes of Big Ben, the smell of cut grass, scones and jam.”

And it is probably not something that would make it onto air in every country of the world.

“It is eccentric, though you only realise when people come from other countries – they are completely baffled by it,” says Clugston.

They mention the fact that the forecast made its way into the Beijing Olympics closing ceremony within a piece I wrote called ‘This is London’.
Here’s Zeb featured in that track along with Elspeth Hanson and the London Symphony Orchestra.[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/36930051″ iframe=”true” /]

February 17, 2012
Liquify the sun

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/35851346″ params=”auto_play=false&show_artwork=true&color=3d0ac7″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]Here’s a track from my new soundtrack for National Geographic/ Nova called Living with a star.

There’s a touch of guitar amp distortion on the cello there…

February 7, 2012
Not So Silent Movies… with Tim Minchin
I am very happy to announce that Tim Minchin will be joining our band for a Not So Silent Movies… evening gig at Kings Place, Hall One on June 29th 2012.
If you’ve never heard of Not so Silent Movies… how can I explain what you’re in for..?

Well, I LOVE silent film, not the mawkish sentimental stuff (no names mentioned) but the slapstick, zero CGI, sharp as a nail comic timing of geniuses like Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.

I also love playing & writing soundtracks with my friends… but not the arduous process of rehearsing. Our lovely band provides a live soundtrack to these incredible films… but there’s a tiny catch;
- There are no rehearsals.
- There’s no sheet music.
- None of the musicians will have watched the films in advance.
- Improvisation before a live audience will begin as the film rolls…
What self-respecting musician would want to put themselves through it?
Well, I’m very happy to say that the band lineup for June 29th is as follows;
- Tim Minchin – guest pianist
- Elspeth Hanson – violin & electric violin
- Julia Thornton – harp
- Pip Eastop, Horn, trumpets & Phatterboy
- Geoff Dugmore – drums, teaspoons & llama toenails
- Mark Neary – Pedal Steel guitar
- Pete Furniss – clarinet, bass clarinet, sax & recorders
- Guy Pratt – Bass
- Philip Sheppard (me) – cello & electric cello
If you’d like to know more.. watch this clip of one of our earlier gigs:[youtube=http://youtu.be/6HrgPGBZ75c]
Tickets & further info from here…
Let us know if you’re planning to come!
best
Philip Sheppard x
February 6, 2012
Britain Prepares film…

[youtube=http://youtu.be/RTMelejhdEo]

Here’s a short film featuring the lovely London Philharmonic Orchestra, my long suffering engineer Jake Jackson and Abbey Road Studios. We did some anthems together. A lot of anthems for the 2012 Olympics…

February 3, 2012
Bafta Awards Trailer

[youtube=http://youtu.be/ika6W9BEbzI]

Here’s the trailer for the 2012 Bafta Awards. I composed the music for it.

January 31, 2012
The haunting…

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/35041312″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=3d0ac7″ width=”100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]January is always a bit weird, screwed up & odd… so here’s something to add to that vibe before we kick it into the snows of February…

January 30, 2012
Philip Sheppard’s new ballet

I’ve written a new ballet score for the wonderful Ballet de l’Opéra national du Rhin. It’s choreographed by Thomas Noone and is titled Many. I’m simply thrilled to have worked on this. Here are some excerpts from the piece: [soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/33203616″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=3d0ac7″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ][soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/33201531″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=3d0ac7″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ] If you like it do download – you can do that by clicking on the files… but drop me a note to say hi! If you like my music I have some albums on bandcamp and iTunes. Here’s a press release from Faber Music;

In recent months, the name of UK composer and cellist, Philip Sheppard, has been very much in the media: a result of him having being commissioned to arrange and orchestrate all the national anthems for the London 2012 Olympics. He’s now recorded them all (205 in total!) with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. However, Sheppard has also found time to complete a 30-minute commissioned dance score for Barcelona-based choreographer, Thomas Noone.

It’s premiered in Mulhouse by Le Ballet de l’Opéra national du Rhin on 22 January 2012, later transferring to Colmar and Strasbourg (9 performances in total). Sheppard has an impressive track record in writing for dance and theatre, having worked with Akram Khan, Sylvie Guillem and Juliette Binoche in recent years. In January 2012 he joins Khan and Guillem for performances of his 2006 score to ‘Sacred Monsters’, in the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris.

January 12, 2012
Ice Drive

Image by Angus Clyne

Here’s another track from The new album I wrote with Evelyn Glennie – it’s called ice drive and features some insanely good toy piano playing!!

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/27735194″]

November 11, 2011
The Flaw

[youtube=http://youtu.be/C7IQe7CBPCc]

Tonight sees the premiere on More 4 of David Sington’s excellent documentary about the credit crisis in the US called ‘The Flaw’. This is the trailer. I was commissioned to write a cartoon-like score for the film – quite a different mode from my normal style of music…

November 8, 2011
Jeff Buckley changed my life

[tweetmeme source= ‘@PhilipSheppard’ only_single=false]

I’ve just found something on youtube that I’ve been searching for for years – literally…

I’ve been so lucky to have been able to play the cello with some of the most amazing musicians, but by far the greatest was Jeff Buckley. Of course he’s shot up the charts recently through his beautiful cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah – surely the antithesis of X-Factor..?

This is Henry Purcell’s Dido’s Lament from Dido and Æneas. But listen to this – Just. listen. to. it…

[youtube=http://youtu.be/xSVCL262gmU]

I mean, no-one can sing like that. No-one should be physically able to sing like that.

Jeff Buckley singing, withpianist Catherine Edwards, violinist Ian Belton and me on cello, in Elvis Costello’s Meltdown Festival, July 1st 1995.

I remember, this singer arrived really late, just before the show, dishevelled, all cheekbones, cool hair, black jeans and the biggest boots you’ve ever seen supporting a rake thin body.

He apologised – got out his music – a kid’s exercise book with the lyrics of the songs written out in a crazy biro scrawl. – If a word was written high up the page, well then it meant it was a high note.

At one point he asked me what country he was in… he was confused between Germany and the UK that day as I think he’d flown in with little sleep.

And then he sang.

As Elvis Costello remembers;

When he started singing Dido’s Lament at the rehearsal, there were all these classical musicians who could not believe it. Here’s a guy shuffling up on-stage and singing a piece of music normally thought to be the property of certain types of specifically developed voice, and he’s just singing, not doing it like a party piece, but doing something with it.

That’s an understatement… I remember the lights being pretty bright and the silhouette of his frame as he bent almost double to wrench every ounce of meaning from a song written 300 hundred years ago. Better than any classical musician I’ve ever heard.

As he was singing, a photographer shuffled along past the feet of the audience in the front row at the Queen Elizabeth Hall to get a shot, unaware that they were for that second the most hated person in London, and got a good clout round the head for their troubles from someone who should remain nameless.

I can’t remember anything straight after that, but Elvis Costello wrote in Mojo:

My last memory of him was at the little party in the green room afterwards. There were all these people sitting round Jeff who’d never met before – Fretwork, the viol group, a classical pianist and some jazz player – all talking and laughing about music. He’d charmed everybody. I’d much rather remember that than anything.

I just wish i could find a photo…

[youtube [tweetmeme source= ‘@PhilipSheppard’ only_single=false]

More where this came from here…

free tracks here

My new albums are here

November 8, 2011
Winter Wonderland with Evelyn Glennie released today!

Evelyn Glennie (Photo by Julian Macedo @PowderPhotography)

Winter Wonderland is a new album I’ve recorded with my friend the brilliant percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie.

It’s released today on iTunes and it’s rather Christmassy…! Here’s a track called Dalbergia…[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/27473216″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=4975ff” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]This one features an amazing Halo Drum[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/27474905″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=4975ff” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]Here’s just one more for now called Frost Flowers…[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/27473068″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=4975ff” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Hope you like the tracks. They’re all on iTunes here.

By the way, the photo above was taken at the weekend when we performed together at my Not So Silent Movies… series at Kings Place.

November 8, 2011
The Denali Experiment – North Face

[youtube=http://youtu.be/6jd3Tx4NugQ]

Here’s a stunning video made by my friends at North Face about their Denali Expedition. The camerawork is simply stunning…

The track is called ‘Night Vision’ and is from my Cloud Songs album.

November 7, 2011
Skysong

Whilst everyone’s looking skywards for stray fireworks… (it’s Guy Fawkes night tonight!) here’s a little piece I wrote for Inside the Milky Way. It’s called skysong. If you like it – you can download it by clicking the arrow on the right!

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/27267901″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=00456b” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

The amazing violin solo is my friend David Le Page. Total genius musician…

Lots of you have been writing in about my soundtracks to Moon Machines and the score to Inside the Milky Way. I really enjoyed writing the music for those shows and if enough of you want it… I’ll get a digital release underway. Let me know though…

Please share this if you like it or look at my other albums on Bandcamp & iTunes!

Thanks… Philip

Philip Sheppard 4/11/2011

November 5, 2011
Evelyn Glennie at Not So Silent Movies

[youtube=http://youtu.be/lbXuoBRCQT8]

We had a sell-out crowd at the first Not So Silent Movies… at Kings Place. Thanks so much for coming!

There’s another one coming up on November 6th at 3pm. Most of the tickets have already gone, so snap the remaining ones up!! Click here for booking.I’m really happy to tell you that Dame Evelyn Glennie OBE is our special guest. Evelyn is a powerhouse virtuoso percussionist, brilliant communicator and a great friend.

Come and see her under some real pressure with our live band and a batch of amazing silent comedies.

What films do you want us to show..?! Please suggest ideas below. I’m wondering about One Week by Buster Keaton as it’s truly awesome. Let me know your thoughts…

Philip Sheppard

October 10, 2011
Not so silent movies… the trailer!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIrs0SRQqbs]

This monthly event takes place at the wonderful Kings Place in London. First gig is Sunday October 2nd at 3pm. Tickets from here.

Be sure to book online to avoid disappointment!

The photo of Harold Lloyd is appropriate, as what we’re going to be doing is risky, thrilling and often hilarious.

Here’s the pitch:
- Great silent film comedies,
- Great musicians together on stage,
- No sheet music,
- No rehearsing,
- No plan,
- & No watching the films in advance…
Yes… it’s totally improvised (spontaneously composed if you want to be pretentious..!), utterly great when it all clicks, and unintentionally hilarious when it goes awry.
September 26, 2011
Not So Silent Movies!
I’m hugely excited to announce the launch of Not so Silent Movies…

This monthly event takes place at the wonderful Kings Place in London. First gig is Sunday October 2nd at 3pm. Tickets from here.

The photo of Harold Lloyd is appropriate, as what we’re going to be doing is risky, thrilling and often hilarious.

Here’s the pitch:
- Great silent film comedies,
- Great musicians together on stage,
- No sheet music,
- No rehearsing,
- No plan,
- & No watching the films in advance…
Yes… it’s totally improvised (spontaneously composed if you want to be pretentious..!), utterly great when it all clicks, and unintentionally hilarious when it goes awry.

Our band is amazing… we have Guy Pratt on Bass (he’s been in Pink Floyd & Roxy Music for starters), Geoff Dugmore’s playing drums (He’s an incredible drummer – one of the greatest session players in the world), Pip Eastop on Horn (he’s a stalwart of the London Sinfonietta, a Professor, stunning soloist and one of the wittiest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing), Elspeth Hanson (violinist currently wowing audiences in Bond, was also glimpsed by about two billion people on a bus with David Beckham & Jimmy Page), Mark Neary (Pedal steel player and alchemist of weird and wondrous noises – last time I saw him he was laying down some lines for Flood!), Me (I play the cello a bit), and some amazing surprise guests too (not Jimmy Page… yet… but we’re working on it! see photo).

Geoff Dugmore, Jimmy Page, Me & Guy Pratt at a recording session

Future Not so Silent Movies are featuring Dame Evelyn Glennie (world famous percussion soloist), Robin Millar (Sade’s producer), Steve Mackey (Pulp’s bassist), Julia Thornton (wizard harpist & percussionist), Pete Furniss (Reeds – a mainstay of the extraordinary Impropera), Roger Eno (maverick keyboardist), Stephen Warbeck (composer, Oscar winner), Cherisse Osei (Mika’s drummer), David Le Page (former Menuhin pupil, Subway Pirhanas, Orchestra of the Swan) and many, many more…

You can probably tell I’m a bit excited about this…

Come and join us for the greatest comedies ever made – (featuring Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Joe Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle & co), and to see a group of musos having a busman’s holiday. We may even get you up on stage to take part!

Let me know who else we should invite, and which films you’d like to see us tackle!

Philip

Philip Sheppard

NSSM article
September 16, 2011
Uks new gymnastic hopeful?

Can’t wait for this at the 2012 London Olympics…

September 9, 2011
Open sky open mind

There are few places in the world more beautiful than Cornwall, early in the morning, far out at sea…

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/uppm-uk/tr18-m-glistening-angels-main”]

August 22, 2011
Simply Strings – new album

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/1026090″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&show_playcount=true&show_artwork=true&color=6b0000″ width=”100%” height=”360″ ]

Here’s a new album I’ve just recorded for Universal, produced by Roberto Borzoni.

The players are:

Violin I: Janice Graham, Magnus Johnston, Annabelle Meare, Kathy Gowers, Marije Ploemacher
Violin Ii: Thomas Kemp,helen Paterson, Fiona Mcnaught, Maya Bickel
Viola: Garfield Jackson, Timothy Grant, Paul Cassidy
Cello: William Schofield, Zoe Martlew, Jacqueline Thomas
Double Bass: Luis Cabrera

Solo Cello & Electric Cello: Philip Sheppard

Hope you like it…!

August 21, 2011
Bobby Fischer soundtrack released

Cover art by Josh Sommers

[bandcamp album=3525722383 bgcol=FFFFFF linkcol=4285BB size=venti]

This is the soundtrack to Liz Garbus’ celebrated film about the life of troubled chess genius Bobby Fischer, ‘Bobby Fischer Against the World’.
I wrote the score around themes by Bach keyboard works. You can sample the full album here. Thanks for listening,
Philip Sheppard

July 4, 2011
100000 plays!

I just looked on Soundcloud to see that I’ve had quite a few plays recently. The track I wrote for the Launch sequence of In the Shadow of the Moon has had 100,000 plays! Thanks everyone…

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/74488″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&show_playcount=true&show_artwork=true&color=3585be” width=”100%” height=”305″ ]

June 7, 2011
Olympic Anthems, an endurance race

With the LPO in Abbey Road

Today is the last day of mixing all 205 of the Olympic Anthems for the London 2012 Games.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra are incredible, and having spent 50 hours locked away with them in Studio 2 at Abbey Road, we all know one another that bit better, and I’m totally in love with their sound. If you want proof of how good they are, just listen to some of their live recordings on their own label.

We’ve gone from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe via the Faroes and Tajikistan, and it’s been something I’m not going to forget in a hurry. Jake Jackson, my rather extraordinary producer, had the bright idea of keeping a record of what we’d done on a wallchart… Dr Strangelove would approve…

Jake’s map!

The press attention’s been odd and an interesting element to deal with, some of the papers were looking for an angle – eg, ‘what’s the worst anthem?’, ‘What could go horribly wrong?’, and ‘Why do you look like Nick Clegg?’. For the record, I DO NOT LOOK LIKE NICK CLEGG. At all. Really.

A top class athlete with a chap in a suit (me)

On our last day we asked Jonathan Edwards – the world’s favourite triple jumper – to come and join us for the recording of God save the Queen. You’ll have to watch this space to see if he made it onto the final cut of the recording… all I’ll say is that it was the loudest note we recorded across all 974 takes!

Just to show what a good setup we have here at Air Studios.. here’s a snapshot for you:

The mix setup…

Note; a very busy Jake Jackson (two keyboards at the same time a la Rick Wakeman), our spreadsheet of anthems projected, too many apple computers, live streamed football match (ahem)…

May 23, 2011
Easter gifts

Here’s an Easter present… for a little while only, these tracks are free downloads. All I ask is that you click the stumble button below, or retweet and recommend them to others if you like them!
[tweetmeme source= ‘@PhilipSheppard’ only_single=false]
[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/sets/easter-radiomovies”]
Stumble It!

Happy and peaceful Easter to you.

Philip Sheppard

April 16, 2011
Cloud Songs for Yuri’s night

Cloud Songs is now out at an iTunes store near you!

Yuri’s night on Tuesday (the anniversary of Gagarin’s orbit around the earth) is being marked by an extraordinary film – First Orbit – made by Chris Riley and Paulo Nespoli on the International Space Station. This is the soundtrack.[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/13400937″]

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/5942212″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=0e8bdd” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Get a free track by subscribing here.
best wishes
Philip Sheppard (aka филипп шепард!)

April 9, 2011
First Orbit – Yuri’s Night

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC2Ea0So2CY]April 12th This year sees an extraordinary anniversary. Fifty years ago to the day Yuri Gagarin became the first person to see the Earth from space. To mark this extraordinary anniversary, I’m proud to be involved in a project devised by my friend Christopher Riley.

In a unique collaboration with the European Space Agency, and the Expedition 26/27 crew of the International Space Station, we have created a new film of what Gagarin first witnessed fifty years ago.

By matching the orbital path of the Space Station, as closely as possible, to that of Gagarin’s Vostok 1 spaceship and filming the same vistas of the Earth through the new giant cupola window, astronaut Paolo Nespoli, and documentary film maker Christopher Riley, have captured a new digital high definition view of the Earth below, half a century after Gagarin first witnessed it.

We have partnered with YouTube to share First Orbit with the World in a special global streaming event on the 12th April. The Yuri’s Night network will also be showing the film at over 120 parties around the world that day. If you would like to watch it at one of these events then please contact the organizers directly through the Yuri’s Night clickable party map.

The music in the film is all composed by me and comes from my album Cloud Songs.

“We’d been working with some of these tracks on another project” says Chris, “and we suddenly realised how perfectly they could compliment ‘First Orbit’ as well. We contacted Philip to ask his permission to use them, only to find that his entire Cloud Song album was already in orbit onboard the International Space Station!”

NASA astronaut Cady Coleman, had them on her iPod… Her husband, Josh Simpson is a friend of mine and they’d listened to a lot of my music together before she left, so I made up a playlist for her. Quite by coincidence Cady had been listening to the music in ‘First Orbit’ at one end of the Space Station whilst European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli was shooting for the film at the other end, without either of them knowing the connection!

If you want to see the film, it’s going to be a completely free download.

Buy the album here!

April 1, 2011
Song of the back woods

Whistler – a photo I took on New Year's Day

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/10426186″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=3585be” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

February 11, 2011
Bobby Fischer against the World Soundtrack

Bobby Fischer Against the World, a film by Liz Garbus, has just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Here are a few tracks from my soundtrack composed for the film, plus… the title track as a free download. (Click to download & please leave a comment below).

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/9489734″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=artwork&color=5c3bc1″ width=”300″ height=”300″ ]

Bobby Fischer against the World, title cue – piano soloist Belinda Mikhail

I first heard about Bobby Fischer when I was a kid, heavily into performing classical music. Many of the great Russian virtuoso musicians and composers had a reputation for being chess fanatics, and I remember my mother’s violin professor Beatrix Marr, describing the friendly rivalry between Boris Spassky and David Oistrakh (one of the world’s greatest violinists). Beatrix regularly thrashed me in chess matches in her cottage, making no allowance for my age…

Music begins with an opening gesture, a phrase or a hook and runs along a temporal plane before reaching a cadence, resolution and ending. Great music lives on as an impression of an experience intertwined with emotion and context. You don’t need to be able to interpret what the blobs and squiggles on a musical staff mean in order to be enveloped in a mindblowing musical experience. You don’t need to learn the ‘rules’ of harmony to be profoundly moved by a performance. The great chess grandmasters inhabit a world we can literally never comprehend. A great chess match is a performance, a spontaneous composition of pure elegant counterpoint.

The supreme master of counterpoint in the entire history of music is J.S.Bach. Even as an experienced musician, I cannot begin to grasp how he processed vast amounts of mathematical musical data, rendering it into perfectly structured miniature cathedrals of sound. The inside of his brain must have had parallels with that of Bobby Fischer, but despite this vast intellect he (unlike Fischer) was able to live a life as a complete human being. (I mean, he had fourteen children for a start…).

Bach’s famous first prelude in C was my starting point for scoring Bobby Fischer against the World. I took the theme and turned it inside out – it begins as fragmented and hesitant gestures as if unsure before playing out to an inevitable endgame. (That’s the piano and string orchestra track above by the way).

The whole of the rest of the score is composed from Bach’s themes – from the Goldberg Variations to the keyboard concertos. This piece below is based on the D minor keyboard concerto, though it’s totally unrecognizable as it’s more like a romantic American/Russian prelude that descends into a shameless waltz. This piece runs underneath the famous match between Spassky and Fischer known as the Game of Placid Beauty. This track was written in New York, against the clock when we were rushing to finish the film, and was a piece that went through so many versions and changes before settling on what became ironically known as The Brooklyn Symphony (there’s always one cue in a film which is a major problem and this was it..!)

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/9489775″]

On a final note, one deeply sad aspect of the making of this film was the loss of the brilliant editor Karen Schmeer. I had already worked with Karen for two years on Greg Barker’s extraordinary film Sergio, and Karen was a joy to work with. We knew each other purely through emails, Skype chats and the odd phone call. We never met, and it’s a strange kind of mourning when the person you knew and liked existed purely at the end of another laptop. Karen had plotted to get me involved in this film by surreptitiously working my older pieces into the rough cut of the movie, without Liz Garbus (the director) fully catching on to what was happening. The day before Karen left us, she had confided to me that her cunning plan was working very nicely.

The film is naturally dedicated to Karen, and the music is wholeheartedly for her (well, the good bits at least…).

Here below is the score for the Brooklyn Symphony with her dedication at the top. Thanks for reading this – Philip Sheppard

The score for the Brooklyn Symphony from Bobby Fischer Against the World.

Quick update – Here’s an ad from the NY times!

January 22, 2011
Christmas music in space!

Here are a couple of Christmas tracks to download by way of thanks for all the great support this year!

Here’s a track called ‘Look Up’ (download using the down button on the right):
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/5942212″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=3585be” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]
This is all about the happiness of flying down a mountain when your heart is full to bursting… Cady Coleman the wonderful astronaut is taking this track up into orbit on the International Space Station this week.

Think of her as she makes her incredible commute on the Soyuz rocket.

I’ve had a great month writing music in Oman as I worked on the sound design of the 40th anniversary celebrations, and have just completed my first album with Evelyn Glennie the percussion virtuoso. There’s a huge project next year which is very very hush hush but it involves being locked in a studio for two weeks conducting a symphony orchestra… more soon!

If you’re going to the Sundance Film Festival – here are two films I’ve got showing there:
http://sundance.bside.com/2011/films/bobbyfischeragainsttheworld_sundance2011
http://sundance.bside.com/2011/films/theflaw_sundance2011
And if you follow the Oscars, the Tillman Story has been shortlisted for the best Documentary!
http://indiegeniusprod.com/BestMoviesEver/tillman-story-trailer/

And… Here’s a carol I wrote called ‘the Orange Tree’… please download if you like.
[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/orange-tree-in-winter”]
Stumble It!

The robin laughed in the orange-tree:
“Ho, windy North, a fig for thee:
While breasts are red and wings are bold
And green trees wave us globes of gold,
Time’s scythe shall reap but bliss for me
Sunlight, song, and the orange-tree.

Have a peaceful, wonderful Christmas and stay in touch!

December 15, 2010
Inside the Milky Way

Click here for a track from the show.

This is an image of what the skies may look like when our sun starts dying in the future… and it’s a striking scene in ‘Inside the Milky Way’ which airs tonight on the National Geographic channel.

I wrote the score for this beautiful-looking programme and it gave me a chance to play around with large clockwork-like swathes of music, mainly based on Bach and Handel.

STOP PRESS! Single available here!

Inside the Milky way airs at 9pm on the National Geographic Channel.. Hope you like it!

All tracks ©Philip Sheppard 2010

October 24, 2010
In some other

Here’s a piece I wrote about a Utopian place. Rolling fields, no sense of time, warmth and happy solitude… Solo violin by the very excellent Elspeth Hanson.
I would say it’s ambient, but it’s got too many melodic lines. It’s a bit celtic, but it’s not folk. Looking for a good title – any ideas?
If you like this, then try these tunes here.

Click here to subscribe, and you’ll get a free download of it from my mailing list. Thanks – Philip
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/6048149″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=3585be” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

October 13, 2010
Studio tan, Bjork’s granny and a troubled chess master

It’s been a bit crazy round here… but I’ve been working with some amazing friends & musicians who’ve kept things sane and very happy.

I’ve been writing and recording with Evelyn Glennie, or Dame Evelyn Glennie O.B.E. as she should really be addressed. She’s one of the most phenomenal musicians I’ve ever worked with – stunning improviser, percussionista par excellence with a wicked sense of humour. By day two of recording together along with the great engineer Jake Jackson, we had completely forgotten the fact that she can’t hear a thing.

I really can’t wait to play you what we’ve come up with…

Meanwhile… The Tillman Story soundtrack is out on iTunes this week thanks to the sterling efforts of The Weinstein Co and Lakeshore records (who previously released my Shadow of the Moon Score). The film is featured in this week’s London Film Festival.

I’ve been back into the studio, (Abbey Road 2 this time), with the brilliant producer Ivor Guest to develop some nasty noises using a big string section for the latest release from France’s most idiosyncratic chanteuse Brigitte Fontaine. This woman is like Bjork’s cooler granny. Here’s a track I did with her with my electric cello doing some very disturbed things over the top… [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlLJqORNu2Q]

She’s wonderful, outrageous and a darn good musician. The last album we worked on was called Prohibition and is worth a listen as I think it’s truly unique.

Meanwhile… I’ve been hard at work on recording and mixing my latest project, an incredible film about the chess genius Bobby Fischer. We assembled a fantastic string section in Air Studio 1 along with master engineer Geoff Foster who’s fresh off working on Narnia & Tron Legacy.

Geoff Foster looks up to see the orchestra left some time ago…

It was lovely being able to record the score with friends I’ve been in chamber groups with since the very early days, Pro Corda & Royal Academy and so forth, and yet pick up where we left off – the only downer being that we were playing my octets rather than Mendelssohn’s…!

You’ve read this far… that mean’s you’re awfully nice or haven’t anything better to do – so by way of an apology & thanks, here’s a track that isn’t particularly melancholic at all… which, if you like it, can be downloaded by clicking the down arrow. Leave me a note if you want!

Yours in rosin and coffee,

Philip

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/5942212″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=3585be” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

October 9, 2010
God in America OST released

My soundtrack for PBS’s forthcoming series God in America is out now on iTunes.

We had the launch party for the series in New York the other day together with the lovely stars of the series Michael Emerson (of Lost fame) and Chris Sarandon (Whom I know from The Princess Bride).

The series also stars Toby Jones – better known to some as Truman Capote and Dobby the house elf!

Here’s a track from the show… I hope you like it

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/5544791″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=3585be” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

September 24, 2010
Key Matters BBC Radio 4

Image by Andrew Lee

Today, 15:45 on BBC Radio 4 (FM only) UK

In this second series of Key Matters, presenter Ivan Hewett explores the question of why certain musical keys have become associated with particular moods. For example, why is A major almost always employed by composers to write optimistic, even ecstatic music? And how has E minor become the key of choice for portraying menace and tragedy?

Cellist and composer Philip Sheppard defines the qualities of E minor on Wednesday with music ranging from Brahms, Elgar and Shostakovich to The Clash.

Produced in Birmingham by Rosie Boulton.

September 22, 2010
God in America PBS

My soundtrack for the forthcoming PBS Frontline series God In America is now available. Click here! Please drop me a line if you’d like more details. Here’s a track from the show…

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/5268417″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=3585be” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Details from the press release for more info:

From the debate over the building of an Islamic center near Ground Zero to the threat by a Florida church to burn copies of the Quran, religion continues to animate American political discourse just as it has since the country’s founding.

Now, for the first time on television, God in America explores the tumultuous 400-year history of the intersection of religion and public life in America.

A distinguished list of actors has been enlisted to portray the historical figures. Two-time Emmy winner Michael Emerson of Lost, delivers a powerful performance as Puritan leader John Winthrop; Oscar-nominated Chris Sarandon (The Princess Bride, Dog Day Afternoon) gives a poignant portrayal of Abraham Lincoln’s spiritual journey during the Civil War ; Olivier Award winner and Tony nominee Toby Jones (Frost/Nixon, Harry Potter , W) as George Whitefield, America’s first, national evangelical preacher; Keith David (Crash, Platoon) as abolitionist Frederick Douglass; and Tony Award winner Jefferson Mays (I Am My Own Wife) as the incarcerated Baptist minister Jeremiah Moore.

Soundtrack by Philip Sheppard.

A co-production of American Experience and Frontline, the six-hour series airs October 11-13 at 9 p.m. ET on PBS

September 13, 2010
Radiomovies roundup

It’s been a busy couple of weeks…

The Tillman Story has been getting the press we had hoped for in the USA – it’s coming to London too in the London International Film Festival. Please go and see it if you get a chance – it’s an important film (despite my soundtrack). He was an incredible man who was let down by his country. Possible soundtrack release on the cards too.

Relish opened at the Tramshed performed by the National Youth Theatre who I absolutely adore. I first worked with them at the Beijing Olympics, and we hatched this project right after that event. It’s on this week too – nb lots of swearing – especially from a foul-mouthed Florence Nightingale!

I’ve written and recorded a score for Relentless Lives of the Artists with UNKLE which premiered earlier this week. You can see it here if you like scary dangerous sports...

Meanwhile I’m in post on a couple of films which I’d love to tell you about.. but that’ll have to wait.

Here’s a new track called ‘Why I do what I do…’. If you like this kind of thing, then join my mailing list and I’ll send you free tunes![soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/5205635″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=3585be” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

September 10, 2010
Steal away

The traditional spiritual ‘Steal Away’ played by an orchestra of cellos, followed by a postlude – solo viola James Boyd. Hope you like it..! This is to be broadcast on the soundtrack to ‘God in America’ – October 10th, 11th, 12th 2010.

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/steal-away-postlude” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=be8735″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

July 25, 2010
New track – Take my Hand

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/take-my-hand” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=3678a3″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

If you like this then try this tune too…

I send my friends & subscribers my new tracks as I write them – click here for free mp3s

July 20, 2010
Steampunk strings

Here’s a sketch I’m working inspired by the incident at the Gare de l’Ouest. A touch of Victorian melodrama with a steampunk symphony orchestra…
[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/murder-on-the-great-western” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=a38036″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

July 9, 2010
Little Ships on BBC

To mark the 70th anniversary of the ‘miracle of Dunkirk’, 50 of the surviving ‘little ships’ which made the original perilous cross-channel voyage returned to France. Dan Snow presents the programme on BBC2 and BBC1.
Original music score by Philip Sheppard.
[tweetmeme source= ‘@PhilipSheppard’ only_single=false]
If you would like to download some of this soundtrack, join my mailing list here and I’ll send you the link.

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/sets/little-ships” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&show_playcount=true&show_artwork=true&color=4d3d7a” width=”100%” height=”185″ ]
Here’s the wonderful JB Priestly talking about the Little Ships

Broadcasts: Thu 3 Jun 2010 21:30 BBC Two, Sat 5 Jun 2010 19:25 BBC Two, Mon 7 Jun 2010 00:20 BBC One.

More from the BBC site here.

June 2, 2010
The Soldiers' Prayer

Stunning image by Parke Harrison

Here’s a new track called The Soldiers’ Prayer. If you like this you might like this too…
[tweetmeme source= ‘@PhilipSheppard’ only_single=false]
This is going to feature on a BBC film called ‘Little Ships’. I’ve written the soundtrack for this beautiful, moving film. I only hope it gets somewhere near the quality of the film!

To mark the 70th anniversary of the ‘miracle of Dunkirk’, 50 of the surviving little ships which made the original perilous cross-channel voyage are returning to France.

The brilliant historian Dan Snow tells their extraordinary story: their role in the evacuation and the people who struggled to keep them afloat during those fateful days in 1940, when the future of Europe hung in the balance.

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/the-soldiers-prayer” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=846d11″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

May 24, 2010
Mixing it up

Please do not put your coffee mug here. Thankyou.

Hard at work in the studio dubbing two different films – one for National Geographic, the other a slightly hush hush PBS series… I could tell you more, but I can’t.

The image above is the dub engineer Rob at LipSynch tweaking something that goes BANG. I love my job…

I’ve been watching BBC 4’s lovely series on maps recently – The Beauty of Maps – and had the slightly unnerving experience of wondering why I recognised some of the music.

Turns out it was mine. (Was on the the verge of wondering out loud who could of written something like that – not in a good way… ooops). Well, see what you think…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtaWEiK77TI]

Philip Sheppard

May 17, 2010
Music for a new Utopia

Suspension by Parke Harrison

Whilst our politicians in the UK struggle to create a government, I started thinking an ideal society.

Music can sometimes describe the impossible. I love the escapist potential of music and sound design, and my constant struggle is to write pieces that act as soundscapes to imaginary places. This piece is called ‘If there is a Heaven’.[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/if-there-is-a-heaven” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=1b5a7a” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]
If you enjoy this kind of thing, then feel free to download it (right downward arrow) and subscribe here for more like this.

Philip Sheppard

May 9, 2010
Sergio (HBO) Soundtrack now on iTunes

My Soundtrack to Sergio which premiered on HBO last night has been released on iTunes. Click here for the link, or preview some of the tracks below.

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/sets/sergio-soundtrack-from-the-motion-picture” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&show_playcount=true&show_artwork=true&color=ab741e” width=”100%” height=”225″ ]

May 7, 2010
Sergio Viera de Mello film premieres on HBO

This Thursday, Sergio premieres on HBO.

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/always-just-sergio” params=”auto_play=false&player_type=artwork&color=ab741e” width=”425″ height=”425″ ]

(Soundtrack by Philip Sheppard)

From the film’s website:

From his birth in Rio de Janeiro in 1948 to his untimely and tragic death in Baghdad in 2003, Sergio Vieira de Mello led an extraordinary life.

Vieira de Mello joined the United Nations in 1969 and would devote his life to the organization and its ideals. Known to most as simply ‘Sergio’, Vieira de Mello worked in some of the world’s most volatile and distressed regions. His career spanned assignments in Lebanon, Peru, Bosnia, Sudan, Cambodia, Cyprus, Mozambique, East Timor and Iraq. Working mostly for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sergio achieved some astonishing successes. These achievements were not easily won. Sergio grew up with the UN, developing several guiding principles along the way.

When Sergio died he was serving as the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General to Iraq. He had managed to find a balance between pragmatism and idealism, principles and compromise. He was the UN’s ‘go to guy’, having spent decades refining his approach. In the words of his friend and colleague Dennis McNamara, Sergio was, “one of the bright stars, maybe the brightest. He was the master magician, mediator, manager, massager of egos.” This was the tragedy of August 19.

May 5, 2010
How deep is deep?

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/how-deep-is-deep” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=3785de” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

May 3, 2010
Close your eyes

Here’s an extract of a track for solo cello, prepared piano and strings called close your eyes. This is my most played track on SoundCloud at the moment.[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/close-your-eyes-6″]If you like this then join my mailing list. (Details at top right)

Blue Attraction by Reciprocity

Stumble It!
I play music for the sense of solace, and sometimes the texture of a sound is enough to make you feel everything could be ok.

Layers of sound can define an architectural place in your head through suggestion and perception. The bass note in this piece is more of a feeling than a real note – try and listen with headphones if you get the chance.
[tweetmeme source= ‘@PhilipSheppard’ only_single=false]

Download tracks like this for free when you join my mailing list:

Click the picture!

April 26, 2010
Ambient Gramophone

His Masters Voice

Stunning image by TonTon Copte

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/his-masters-voice” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=322b8d” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Thought I’d revive this track as it’s had a lot of plays on SoundCloud.. and it’s a free download too. Try this tune too…

Don’t forget to subscribe – it’s all free!

April 25, 2010
Volcanic Cloud

Just heard the news that there’s a volcanic cloud heading this way from Iceland. Here’s what I think it might sound like… (this may be a bit rough as I’ve written it fast!)
[soundcloud width=”100%” height=”81″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=5a4811″ url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/ls32-morse-dynamo”] CLOUD MORSE by Radiomovies

Don’t forget you can get this and other free downloads when you subscribe here!

April 15, 2010
Radiomovies roundup

Keeping in touch

I like sending free tracks out sometimes, and have found a really good way to do this…

If you fill in your email address at this link, I’ll send you news of downloads, sheet music, forthcoming gigs and broadcasts. It’s totally secure and a good way to keep in touch.

There’s a song sent back to you by return by way of thanks!

April 12, 2010
Far Reaches

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/at-the-edge-of-life” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=5a4811″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]
This is one of a series of tracks I’ve written for a new album I’m writing called ‘Music on the edge of Life’.

The picture is by Christophe Dessaigne.

From his site: Christophe Dessaigne is a French artist who lives in the south of France, in a small town called Perpignan, near Spain on the Mediterranean coast. His creations are open doors to fantastic and dreamy horizons where digital photography serves the fanciful imagery of surrealist photomontages. His universes are desolate, vast and insubstantial. [tweetmeme source= ‘@PhilipSheppard’ only_single=false]

The track is (naturally) heavy on the electric cello…

April 7, 2010
Happy Easter Gift

Here’s an Easter present… for a couple of days only, these tracks are free downloads. All I ask is you click the stumble button below, or retweet and recommend them to others if you like them!
[tweetmeme source= ‘@PhilipSheppard’ only_single=false]
[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/sets/easter-radiomovies”]
Stumble It!

Happy and peaceful Easter to you.

April 4, 2010
How to get fired from the ballet

This has made my day. Rather a lovely ballet gets enhanced by a piece of spectacular improvisation from the backing Tiger…
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN9XrTL76iA][tweetmeme source= ‘@PhilipSheppard’ only_single=false]
Happy Easter to you!

April 3, 2010
Manchester Passion – a Show for Easter

On a chilly night in Manchester, a few years ago…

As it’s Good Friday, I thought I’d post this…

I had the honour of being involved in ‘The Manchester Passion’, a live re-enactment of the easter story on the streets of Manchester.
I wrote the music for the event, arrangements of songs by The Stone Roses, The Smiths, Joy Division et al.
We used no drums or guitars and it was one of those projects when (on the night) everything kind of clicked…

In amongst the rampant consumerism of Easter, this was an attempt to remember why we spend a fortune on bad chocolate…

April 2, 2010
At sea far from Home

Here’s a new track

The Incredible image is a photograph by Martin Pickard of Anthony Gormley’s staggering sculptures in the sea.

This piece is called At Sea far from Home and it’s from an album I’m developing to be announced soon! Let me know what you think…

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/at-sea-far-from-home”]

March 23, 2010
Sponsor me and get a free album

If you’re kind enough to sponsor a wonderful charity, I’ll send you a free album download!

In 2005 I ran the London Marathon with my friends Andy and Rob in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital.

This year, we’re running it again in aid of the Anthony Nolan Trust (an incredible Leukemia charity).

26.2 miles is a jolly long way, and as many of you know I’m not a sporting chap (but I seem to be able to run for hours, which is just as well…).

I’m now up to 15 miles on my training runs. This normally involves going out fairly late at night with a headtorch, GPS and a playlist of scary music on my iPod(makes me run faster in the dark between villages!). I also have to drink lucozade Sport drinks on the way which are deeply unpleasant but do the job…

Here’s my deal with you;

If you sponsor me £1 / $1 or €1, (or more), then I will send you a special one-off album of my most popular tracks as featured on iTunes – ie tracks from, ‘In the Shadow of the Moon’, ‘Henry Mind of a Tyrant’ and pieces from my forthcoming Piano album, (examples below)

In the Shadow of the Moon[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/22-re-entry.mp3]The Haunted Salon[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/04-moon-over-meadow.mp3]

Go to this page here to leave however much or little you want, then drop me a message in the comments below (this can stay private), and I’ll send you a download code by return.

Thankyou lovely people….

Philip

March 22, 2010
Concerto for Stuka Bomber and Orchestra

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/c-o-n-c-e-r-t-o-f-o-r-s-t-u-k-a-b-o-m-b-e-r-o-r-c-h-e-s-t-r-a” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=6bb7ef” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]Here’s a sketch for a concerto for Stuka Bomber and Orchestra. Should be fun to stage…!

March 11, 2010
Radiomovies Roundup

Radio 4’s Soul Music today featured Jeff Buckley’s amazing performance of Dido’s Lament at the Meltdown Festival in 1995. You can listen to the programme here.

Nice image from Michel

I’m stuck into a really exciting film project that will be released in the Autumn with an album launch… can’t say too much yet…

Also had a nice invite to play on Later with Jools Holland. Last time I was on with The Hours, we were alongside The Scissor Sisters & Damon Albarn. That made my month!

Just a reminder that my Henry VIII soundtrack is available on iTunes here. To preview it click the play button below…

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/sets/henry-mind-of-a-tyrant”]

By the way, if you’ve requested specific MP3s recently, I’m slowly getting round to sending them out (thanks for your patience!).

Best, Philip

March 9, 2010
Jeff Buckley Feature on BBC Radio 4

The forthcoming Radio 4 programme Soul Music features Jeff Buckley’s amazing Meltdown performance of Dido’s Lament.
[tweetmeme source= ‘@PhilipSheppard’ only_single=false]

It’s on Tuesday 9th March at 1.30 pm. I’m afraid I’m on there too raving about the man!

Here’s a previous article I wrote with a shaky bootleg recording too…

March 4, 2010
Radiomovies roundup

Another genius image from Lucy Martin

Here are some recent tracks… let me know which other ones should be downloads![soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/sets/r-a-d-i-o-m-o-v-i-e-s” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&show_playcount=true&show_artwork=true&color=6bb7ef” width=”100%” height=”360″ ]

February 27, 2010
Philip Sheppard signs with Faber

I’m delighted to let you know I’ve signed a publishing agreement with Faber Music.

They’re a company I’ve liked for many years – and I’m excited about working with them. Click the image above for their site.

February 19, 2010
The Clockmaker's Daughter

Here’s a new piece called The Clockmaker’s Daughter. [Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/the-clockmakers-dream.mp3]

It’s a light, steampunk little vocal study, with glass harmonica and prepared piano. I wanted to explore the idea of a mechanical sound feeling really human.

Voice parts by Belinda Mikha

February 14, 2010
The Tillman Story – score by Philip Sheppard

Here as promised are three of the cues from the score of The Tillman Story, which has just been playing at Sundance 2010.

‘Amir Bar-Lev’s “The Tillman Story” is a riveting account of how a soldier’s death in Afghanistan was spun into a web of public lies…. Theatrical, broadcast and further fest exposure are assured…’

VARIETY

‘…driven by a terrific score by Philip Sheppard who did the music for “Sergio” and “In The Shadow of The Moon”…’

INDIEWIRE

The AfghanCongressPat’s Chorale

February 5, 2010
Radiomovies news

The Tillman Story is in competition at Sundance, so we’re all getting excited about the premiere at the Egyptian Theatre. Meanwhile, Sergio has made the Oscar shortlist.

Also now halfway through writing a big USA film project that I’m loving working on. Also finished a film where I’m sharing a credit with Moby (which is nice, but I doubt he shares my excitement…)

Here are some recent pieces from films (some can be downloaded..);

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/sets/r-a-d-i-o-m-o-v-i-e-s” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&show_playcount=true&show_artwork=true&color=6bb7ef” width=”100%” height=”305″ ]

January 10, 2010
Nearly Zero G

I crave that sense that hovers somewhere between fear and bliss.

It’s this time of year that I long to be on a mountain’s edge somewhere between heaven and earth, gravity and weightlessness, beauty and terror.

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/nearly-zero-g”]

This track is called Nearly Zero G and was featured in the recent Teton Gravity extreme Ski film Re:Session.

I’ve had lots of emails asking to buy this track. Well, you can’t buy it.. but you can download it for free right here!

January 3, 2010
?Tango

Here’s an ?Tango for the end of the year…

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/tango”]

Hmmm… Well we may not be rich any more, but we’ve got art, music and books to keep our imaginations warm…!
Stumble It!

December 30, 2009
Hampton Court Stompe free download

Here’s a rollicking snow dance for Henry VIII at Hampton Court, performed by me with Fretwork, the wonderful viol consort. This was used in the David Starkey series, Henry Mind of a Tyrant.

I hope you’re having a wonderful Christmas!

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/the-hampton-court-stompe”]

Stumble It!

December 26, 2009
His Master's Voice

His Master's Voice image by axonsolar

A 78 rpm record springs into life. This is (for a short time only) a free download!

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/his-masters-voice” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=b07a10″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]
Stumble It!
Recent itunes soundtrack release here.

December 23, 2009
Orange Tree in Winter

Here’s a Christmas track to download by way of thanks for all the great support this year!

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/orange-tree-in-winter”]

Stumble It!

The robin laughed in the orange-tree:
“Ho, windy North, a fig for thee:
While breasts are red and wings are bold
And green trees wave us globes of gold,
Time’s scythe shall reap but bliss for me
Sunlight, song, and the orange-tree.

December 20, 2009
Dickens’ Christmas Carol Overture

Here’s an overture I wrote for a production of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol starring Clive Francis, designed by Tim Bird.

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/duickens-christmas-carol-overture” params=”auto_play=false&player_type=artwork&color=b07a10″ width=”300″ height=”300″ ]
Stumble It!
If you’d like the mp3 drop me a line below!

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

December 12, 2009
Henry Mind Of A Tyrant is out

Fountains Abbey – CD Cover by Lucy Martin

Finally… the HENRY MIND OF A TYRANT soundtrack to David Starkey’s Henry VIII series is out!

It’s on UK iTunes now, and US iTunes here.
Stumble It!
It’ll get onto Spotify a little while later, followed by all the other major retailers. ‘O Dolce Nocte’, ‘Without Discord’ and ‘Adieu Madame’ are getting some nice attention. Thanks everyone for getting behind this.

If you don’t want to buy it you can click below and stream the tracks from SoundCloud.[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/sets/henry-mind-of-a-tyrant” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&show_playcount=true&show_artwork=true&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”225″ ]
I’ve teamed up with an extraordinary photographer for the artwork, Lucy Martin, and am working on a physical copy of the CD for release in the New Year.

Thanks to everyone for spreading the word and getting RadioMovies CD label off the ground!

Recording details:

HENRY MIND OF A TYRANT

ISRC CODE: GBLFP0921202

Label: Radiomovies

Composer: Philip Sheppard

See the Anne Boleyn Files too.

Follow me on Instagram for latest news.

December 3, 2009
Lucky

I’ve been working again with a great animator called EB Hu.
This a film by him called Lucky.
[vimeo = http://vimeo.com/8104231]

My piano piece is called Memory of Water.

It’s featured on the forthcoming Venetian Underground album.

More here – including an interview with EB

December 1, 2009
Radiomovies roundup

Things have been very busy here at Radiomovies Studio – It’s been a long time since the last post!
Sergio has just been shortlisted for the Oscars!!
[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/sergio-end-credits” params=”auto_play=false&player_type=artwork&color=c48c1e” width=”300″ height=”300″ ]
BBC Radio 3 have playlisted one of my Henry VIII tracks – and I’m releasing an EP any minute of the vocal tracks from the series.
[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/o-dolce-nocte” params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=c48c1e” width=”100%” height=”18″ ]
In the dance world, Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem are to present Sacred Monsters, score by me, in Japan before Christmas.

November 29, 2009
Borderland

Violin track featuring Elspeth Hanson.

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/b-o-r-d-e-r-l-a-n-d”]

October 10, 2009
Promoting your music online

This is a section of a talk I gave at the Royal Academy of Music for music students

One of the sections was centered around some specific information concerning how simple it is to produce and circulate a debut recording. These days, a record deal maybe the last thing you need as a musician!!

One student asked if they should send a huge dossier of references, biographies, programmes and recordings to prospective venues/employers. Err.. nope! A CD with a handwritten note, nicely designed, personally directed is much better, especially if solicited via an initial email. The former package would in all likelihood end up in a recycling bin.

Harsh maybe.. but true!

Here are some simple steps to releasing tracks online and (even) getting income through sales (though this may not be the primary aim at this stage). You want people to hear you, join you, and get excited about what you produce next (and hopefully turn up in droves to your next recital).

Getting it out there…

Let’s assume you’ve already recorded a really well thought-through programme.

The obvious place to start a web presence is myspace, but it seems (at best) an inelegant way to present yourself as an artist, especially when there are so many other free hosted sites with beautiful templates out there. I have a myspace page, but its primary purpose is to redirect traffic to my own sites!
WordPress

I love WordPress (where you’re reading this). It’s free – I can place a track like this
by entering a piece of simple code, and it looks professional. It’s designed as a piece of blogging software, but rather than using it purely as an online diary, I find it is a great place to host your biography and showreel. Also, it’s a great place to engage in regular chats with people who might like what you do.

The more people comment and link to you, the higher you page goes in Google’s rankings, so make sure it’s appealing!!

You can get a WordPress blog here – highly recommended.

SoundCloud
A different way of grouping/ hosting your music for free is presented by SoundCloud. What is neat about this is the way people can place comments along the timeline, and even better, anyone (if you like) can stream it to their own blog/site. Here’s a recent piece of mine which is being streamed from the SoundCloud website.

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/close-your-eyes-6″]

Listeners can add comments at specific points in the track – you can see them by hovering over the pictures. I use SoundCloud to determine whether a track has ‘legs’ or not. It’s very meritocratic – if something’s good – it’ll get lots of plays!

Now, if you’re feeling generous, you can make the tracks downloadable (although I would tag them in iTunes first so the mp3 has your web address in its code).
This track is a download track – again, being streamed via a simple bit of code from SoundCloud:
[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/in-i-the-apotheosis-akram-khan-juliette-binoche”]

The downwards arrow on the right is a download link. Here’s a site where someone’s placed a block of my tracks leading to free downloads.

Here’s my site hosted by SoundCloud.

Lastfm

A well-established streaming music service is lastfm.com. This is a curious amalgam of fansite and radio station. Personally I find it a bit disjointed, and also it concerns me that unreleased tracks often appear there from dubious sources. There are tracks of mine on there that I’ve never released!

The Sixty one

A completely different approach to new music streaming and downloads can be found at thesixtyone.com.

This is a really hard site to describe as it is as much about gameplay as it is about streaming music. There are two types of (free) account. Artists or Listeners. The Listeners get a higher ranking depending upon how they scout for new songs that the Artists place on there. They give ‘hearts’ to tracks they like, a little like buying shares in a stock that looks like it’s going to perform well.

Frankly, no-one really knows how it works but it’s a superb place to find new music in a quirky and vibrant community.
Also, as with SoundCloud, you can tell pretty quickly if a track has merit as it will get voted onto the front page!
Players also give ‘tips’ which I hadn’t realized translate into Paypal dollars.

From my page here, I have enough for two cappuccinos already… hurrah!

Setting up a label and generating paid downloads

Setting up a label appears at first to be an onerous and difficult task. This certainly used to be the case, when there was a baffling array of requirements,; barcodes, encoding, registration and so forth. This is no longer the case thanks to intermediary companies that have sprung up to help us confused and frustrated independent players and composers.

CDbaby

CDBaby was established by the very brilliant Derek Sivers (whose blog is essential reading). They distribute to a huge number of digital outlets, and have excellent accounting procedures for small labels. They started as a physical distributor of CDs but seem to have made a smooth transition to digital marketing. You can read about joining here.

Ditto Music
One of the most impressive of these new services is Ditto Music.

They have created a brilliant service where the tasks of creating a label for your releases is streamlined and organized for a one-off fee. They also take 0% of your royalties when tracks are sold online, and they can distribute to 700 digital outlets. The real icing on the cake is that they have created a means by which independent musicians can get their tracks loaded onto Spotify, and iTunes.

Spotify

There’s a widely held belief that as an independent artist, getting your tracks onto Spotify and iTunes is nigh on impossible unless you’re with a major label. This is happily untrue as discussed above. Spotify is an exciting way of streaming (and now temporarily downloading) tracks which has begun a seamless integration with phones and mp3 players.

Spotify are themselves trying to approach smaller, independent labels, and you can register interest as a future partner here.

What’s next..?

I’m going to write about physical CD production, as well as other merchandise… But I need a big mug of coffee first! Let me know if this is useful…

In the meantime, here’s an article I wrote about being a composer whilst keeping your head!

October 6, 2009
T h e T o u c h

Here’s a track called The Touch

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/t-h-e-t-o-u-c-h”]

If it gets enough thumbs up it becomes a download!

October 3, 2009
Ski film

Awesome skiing skills.[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa5T4lLJP_Y]

The Tune at the beginning is by me – it’s called Nearly Zero G

September 22, 2009
In-I score download

In-I starring Akram Khan and Juliette Binoche is playing at BAM Harvey Theater (NY) this week.

To download tracks click on the buttons on the right hand side – it’s very easy!

To get news of more tracks like this you could join Philip here on Instagram:

And listen to lots of other tracks by clicking the pages in the right hand sidebar.

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/sets/in-i-starring-juliette-binoche-akram-khan”]

If you liked this.. here’s one more chilled-out track for you:
Clear Blue – upbeat electric cello – feel free to give it the thumbs up (if you want..)!
n.b. Leave a comment below and we’ll send you links to other free tracks when they’re released.

September 13, 2009
Exos animation

Steve Scott used one of my tracks in a recent animation called Legend of Exos
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/4865046]
I love his style – steampunk and surreal.
The film features my track ‘Keep Walking’ which you’re welcome to download from here:
[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/keep-walking-3″]
(Click the downwards arrow on the right hand side!)

September 5, 2009
Venetian Underground

Some years back I wrote a piece for Unknown Public, an awesome music magazine in a box.

It was called ‘Venetian Underground’ and was a depiction of an imaginary metro system beneath the canals of Venice. The subvapporetti would clunk along deep in the sub aqueous gloom, sometimes running grinding sparks off the undersides of gratings in church floors…

It was (I now realize) a rather steampunk idea.

But; I loved the idea more than the piece I wrote.

To address this, I’ve started work on a cycle of pieces revisiting the place in my head
[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/sets/venetian-underground”]

Hope you like it. If so, leave a note, or a stumble thumbs up and then – try this

September 2, 2009
Piano and string orchestra

Another amazing image by Trey

Here’s a piece I recently recorded for Piano and string orchestra called Remember me this way [Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/14-the-tomb-of-glenn-gould.mp3]

If you’d like a copy click here for simple instructions!

I wanted to write something optimistic and melancholy at the same time – playful, but with an undercurrent of an elegy. Not sure if I got there!

I heard a lovely eulogy the other day, where someone I’d been very fortunate to know was described as ‘a man with no corners’. What a great way to be remembered!

August 9, 2009
Summer String Orchestra

Here’s a piece for nine-piece string orchestra (ie double quartet plus bass) I wrote whilst staying in Suffolk one scorching Summer.

It’s called Primary Colours [Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/01-primary-colours.mp3]

If you’d like a copy click here for simple instructions!

Hope you like it!

August 1, 2009
Music for a sunken ballroom

I had a picture pop into my head of a ballroom which, for no reason other than decay, rising water levels and magical realism, has slipped underwater.

This is the music they play there…

Prize for the first person who guesses the relevance of the title! Mrs Weston’s Waltz[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/reform-waltz.mp3]This one’s self explanatory… The fortepiano sinks [Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/the-fortepiano-sinks.mp3]

Great photo by bulletproofsoul

Stumble it if you like it..:

July 28, 2009
Henry VIII album
I’m delighted to tell you that Henry Mind of a Tyrant is shortly to be released on a label I’ve just set up…
I have great designers, animators, editors on board and think it may just work..
There are Three CDs coming out before the Autumn and this is definitely one of them!

NB, Other releases are to be a piano album (including Crystallised Beauty) and a CD of my odd cello/orchestra soundscapes (including Close Your Eyes).

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/sets/henry-mind-of-a-tyrant”]

Click the play button to hear tracks including O Dolce Nocte featuring Alamire and Fretwork.

The reason I’m writing though is that I’m going to need help (hopefully yours!) getting the word out there about the Henry CD as this is a small-label release, but I’d love it to reach a wide audience. There’s no financial drive behind this, as I’m just as happy to distribute tracks free when I can. Your suggestions matter very much, as it’s only because of the comments on this page here – that the companies have agreed to let me make the CD!

So all ideas as to how & if you’d like to own it, which radio stations I should approach, what kind of packaging you’d like used, which tracks you’d want on there (I will put the credits music on!), even how much it should cost… will be very gratefully received. I’d also like to put suggested artwork online, so you can help me choose what it should look like.

So, at the moment I’m considering all of these types of release;
- Free download
- Spotify Release
- iTunes
- CD release with artwork from the TV series
- Coffee table style copy (don’t know how else to put it..!) – ie a book with a CD/ specially commissioned artwork/ calligraphy/ limited edition print
I’ll send you a Henry mp3 right away by way of thanks if you drop me an idea!

Many thanks as ever

Philip

PS. Spread the word through this link if there are others who’d be interested (if you want to..):

You should follow me on Instagram
July 27, 2009
Apollo Good Earth

Working on ‘In the Shadow of the Moon’, and meeting many of the astronauts from the Apollo programme led me to fall in love with all things lunar.

Here’s something I wrote recently after listening to the Apollo 8 Genesis reading.. I noticed they all spoke around B flat major, and that their voices are inherently melodic.[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/apollo-good-earth” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=c48c1e”]

Featured voices are; Frank Borman, James Lovell and Bill Anders.

July 17, 2009
Radiomovies Piano News!

Well.. after lots and lots of talking and negotiating.. it looks like we can get the piano pieces released!! Initially on itunes, emusic and spotify.. as well as a nice coffee table version.

Please let me know with your comments which ones definitely make the cut!

Here

July 15, 2009
Radiomovies periodical

Exciting times ahead. Very close to coming up with a way to issue tracks in digital and physical formats with a twist.

I’ve just added this track that I wrote called Sink Below[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/aqua-voce.mp3]

Here’s a track called Not Coming Back[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/not-coming-back.mp3]

Hope you like it! The awesome photo below is by Trey Ratcliff. SLR genius…

Photo by Stuck in Customs

PS. Follow me on Instagram for updates on other tracks: https://www.instagram.com/philipsheppard/ – also if you leave me a message below, you may find an mp3 or two on its way..! Thanks for the continued support from Jane Austen fans – click here to know more…

July 13, 2009
Close your eyes

Here’s an extract of a new track for solo cello, prepared piano and strings called close your eyes. If you like it you might like these tracks too[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/close-your-eyes-6″]Drop me a comment below if you want to buy the single!
[digg=http://digg.com/music/Close_your_eyes_r_a_d_i_o_m_o_v_i_e_s]

Blue Attraction by Reciprocity

Stumble It!
I play music for the sense of solace, and sometimes the texture of a sound is enough to make you feel everything could be ok.

Layers of sound can define an architectural place in your head through suggestion and perception. The bass note in this piece is more of a feeling than a real note – try and listen with headphones if you get the chance.

If you like this kind of thing then try The Glass Cathedral, or The Diver in the Crypt… they’re coming from a similar place!

Would love to know what you think. If you like this try these:

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/adieu-madame” params=”auto_play=false&player_type=artwork&color=c48c1e” width=”300″ height=”300″ ]

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/sets/venetian-underground”]
[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/sets/henry-mind-of-a-tyrant”]

July 8, 2009
radiomovies roundup

Image by Loralei

Sorry for the recent radio silence! I’ve been very busy with a film and a stage show… plus there’s a really big film project in the pipeline that I wish I could tell you more about…

To all who’ve asked for Crystallised Beauty… it’s just been sent – and I’ve had a brainwave about how to release tracks more easily. Watch this space!

Also coming soon – a schedule of all forthcoming performances and film broadcasts/premieres plus dance shows too.

Here’s a new piano track that goes with the above image – a memory for water [Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/a-memory-of-water.mp3]

June 30, 2009
Carnegie Hall premiere

no photoshopping here..!

Quoted from Press release

The Houston Symphony announces Carnegie Hall as the second stop for the world-premiere event, The Planets—An HD Odyssey, a newly commissioned project of the Symphony. On January 28, 2010, Carnegie Hall will present the Symphony under the baton of Music Director Hans Graf in a program that culminates with Gustav Holst’s beloved The Planets and a high-definition, state-of-the-art film by celebrated producer/director Duncan Copp.

I’ve written a Prelude – The Launch of Cassini which opens the film.

I’m very excited about this. I’ve played in Carnegie Hall, but have never had anything presented there before. The Holst is such an incredible piece that I’m steering clear of its orchestration and soundworld and going heavily into harmonics and string overtones.

I may put a sneak peek here soon. Needless to say, it’s going to have a lot of cellos in it…

June 18, 2009
Josie's LaLaLand

I’ve just been working once again with the astoundingly talented animator Yibi Hu.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BAFh6S-LFQ]

I realised I’d never posted my previous project with him. He’s a stunning artist.

New film coming soon!

June 2, 2009
Crystallised Beauty Piano Music
Follow him on Instagram here.Then…
Download the sheet music here!

Breaking news… New piano page with tracks here
Funnily enough, I can’t play the piano as I’m a cellist by trade, so one hand carrying a melody is more than enough for me. In fact my piano reports from junior school were so bad that I still have them.

They are paper reports as, back then, the only computer in school ran floppy disks the size of a pancake (same consistency too) and could achieve the incredible task of generating a row of ten prime numbers whilst making a noise like your granny clearing her throat.

Sorry, not your granny, one’s own granny.

So they were lovingly crafted from postcard sized sheets of paper stapled together with a whole page per subject, including instrumental lessons. Most of the sheets were marked with crabbed, bitter scratchings of frustrated first world war veterans sent to the darkest parts of Essex to teach us, which goes some way to explaining why they were illustrated with fag ash burns and beer stains.

Not so my piano report pages .. oh no. Elegant beautiful writing like (the then) to be Lady Di’s.

They read:
- Year one: Trying
- Year two: Still trying
- Year three: Very trying
Obviously a treasured possession now…

Anyway – A little while back I wrote a piece for solo piano called Crystallised Beauty (Crystallized if you’re American) which was recorded on an album for Chappell. For some reason, some people like it – for which I’m very grateful, as I’m an imposter in the world of the keyboard…

Here’s the not often heard full-length version of the track:

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/crystallised-beauty”]

Here’s a Jane Austen trailer using it. The sheet music is finally coming soon and will be a free download from this page…
[digg=http://digg.com/music/Crystallised_Beauty_Piano_Piece]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrQGlP4g3QQ&hl=en&fs=1]

Other Keyboard pieces

The are a number of other keyboard pieces in this set.

Here’s one of them, which was recorded in Finchcocks, a stately home and piano museum. The instrument used is a Viennese double strung piano – very rare and extremely fragile instrument. [Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/04-moon-over-meadow.mp3]The piece is (as yet) unnamed, but is based on the idea of an empty drawing room at night – except, that is, for the piano. It holds within its wood and strings snatches of music, harmonics and melodies that others have played on it… Any ideas for names gratefully accepted – the more literary the better!

Here’s a second piece recorded on a Steinway – a slow ballade waltz [Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/jb3-ballade.mp3]

Here’s a third piece called The Long Letter[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/07-10-long-letter.mp3]
June 1, 2009
Philip Sheppard Composer

Philip Sheppard is a composer specializing in film and television soundtracks. He is also a solo cellist and a Professor at the Royal Academy of Music.

Follow him on Instagram here.

Recent films include In the Shadow of the Moon (which won numerous awards including the World Documentary Prize at Sundance), Henry Mind of a Tyrant for David Starkey

May 28, 2009
Living Frontier at Hadrian's Wall

If you’re near Hadrian’s Wall this Saturday night, you may hear Romans, Reivers, and Vikings fighting in time to my music – (well it makes a change from ballet!)

The Living Pageant is a rather unique event, involving hundreds of re-enactors, some very new technology, and a rather impressive bit of Roman brickwork.

I’ve pre-recorded the score, but will be mixing it as a live soundtrack, using some familiar technology, and a ridiculous number of laptops. I’m hoping the effect will be that of a live film…

I’m driving the score together with Peter Gregson, and we’re using a combination of Ableton and Logic (and hopefully not itunes…)

Here’s one of the more mellow moments – The Derwent Ballad as played by the excellent violinist Elspeth Hansen, (and yours truly)[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/derwent-ballad.mp3]

Download from here

May 27, 2009
Sergio at Telluride

Sergio wins audience award at Telluride film festival!

Greg Barker accepting the award

From the Telluride Daily Planet:

The 2009 Mountainfilm Festival plopped its audience in front of gorgeous canyons and tremendous acts of bravery, audacious hoaxes and evil corporate maneuvering, boundless compassion and extraordinary individuals.

In the end, it was one of these individuals — Sergio Vieira de Mello — who stole the hearts of the movie-goers.

Greg Barker’s film, “Sergio” is a meticulously-crafted portrait of de Mello — the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights whose life was cut tragically short when a truck bomb exploded below his office in Baghdad. “Sergio” won the Audience Choice Award at this year’s festival.

Watch out for online stream of some of my music from the film… coming soon!

May 27, 2009
Sergio Trailer

Warning – contains graphic images and strong language.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3UnP1A4RGc]

This is the trailer for Sergio (directed by Greg Barker) which premiered at Sundance and has just featured at HotDocs festival. I wrote the score which is featured on this trailer – and it features the wonderful Ife Tolentino on guitar.

N.B. Click the HQ button for hi-res version.

May 14, 2009
Track for the day

Image by Paul Hollingworth – stunning artist – more of his work here.

Not coming back click here to listen:[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/not-coming-back.mp3]

Download track here

May 7, 2009
The kindle… what about sheet music?
From today’s Guardian:

‘Amazon today unveiled a new, larger version of its Kindle ebook reader, which is aimed at students – and heralded as a potential saviour by some parts of the newspaper industry.

The Kindle DX, which will go on sale in the US this summer for $489 (£325), has a bigger, 9.7in, screen, which can be used to display larger pages from academic textbooks and newsprint titles.’

Now… I can’t bear the idea of an electronic book.
- I like holding books with two hands
- I like folding the corners over (sorry)
- I like the smell of old penguin orangebacks
- I like lending books to friends without worrying about DRM (or whatever)
But what if this new reader can be used for sheet music? Could one write markings – dynamics/ fingerings etc – on the pages for future reference or would it be utterly un-interactive?

Would it stop me getting a hernia from lugging scores around? Can I have an A2 landscape version?

Just asking…
May 6, 2009
radiomovies DVD news

It seems this is the week for DVD releases of some of my recent scores…

Henry Mind of a Tyrant, Sacred Monsters and Moon Machines are all rolling out now!

Henry Mind of a Tyrant is released on DVD in the UK:

Moon Machines finally gets a release on DVD in the US:

This series was fascinating to work on. The series focuses on the brains behind the mind-blowing technology that got man to the moon more than just the once. If you liked In the Shadow of the Moon (and I hope you did) then you might enjoy this too. My favourite sequences show how the software to run the craft was literally knitted by expert seamstresses using looms.

Sacred Monsters is released worldwide on DVD by Sadlers Wells:

This show starred Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem. I wrote the score and toured with the production as onstage cellist (with a great band) for the best part of a year and a half. I hope to post the soundtrack online soon as a free listen (as per my other Akram show; In-I).

May 6, 2009
New Piano Download

Just because it’s a Wednesday, and sunny… here’s a track called Watermark for solo piano[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/watermark.mp3]

Click this..

Then:

Limited edition download here!

Follow me on Instagram!

April 29, 2009
Henry VIII CD?

I’ve had a lot of emails asking about the possible CD release of the Henry Mind of a Tyrant score on CD (and other media). It features Alamire, Fretwork, Dot Allison and Charles Mutter.

We’re working on it fast… The more messages that come through, the more likely it is to happen so it’s looking good.

Thanks everyone!

PS. check back regularly in the Free Bits section as limited edition tracks will appear there often!

April 24, 2009
Summer’s here!

Summer’s landed – So soon after Easter?

Anyway, sitting in the garden, writing music. Today’s one of those days I’m grateful to be a self-employed person… shouldn’t go on about it as it’ll start raining, and for all I know you may be sitting at a PC somewhere cold..?

I wanted to let you know that there’s a new tag in the top right hand corner called Free Bits. It’s where I’ll post anything that appears on my other posts such as free mp3 downloads and sheet music, plus the odd preview invite and so forth.

Also, I’m on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/philipsheppard/

(is this wrong?)

Join me and you’ll be the first to know about future freebies, Henry VIII soundtrack release and download (Mind of a Tyrant), Jane Austen piano tracks and release dates for some films I’ve worked on in the US.

April 22, 2009
Henry Mind of a tyrant part 3

Just a reminder that Henry Mind of a tyrant part 3 – Lover – is on Channel 4 tonight at 9pm.

I got a nice write up in the Radio Times today… very nice of them. I won’t quote it here.

There’s a video over at C4 here:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/henry-viii-the-mind-of-a-tyrant/articles/video-interview-philip-sheppard

Looking forward to the Henry exhibit at the British Library – hope to have a sneak preview this week as my music’s being used for the launch party.

April 20, 2009
radiomovies roundup

Moon Machines is on the Science Channel this week – the companion series to In the Shadow of the Moon. I wrote the music for the series last year which aired on the Discovery Channel.

Henry Mind of a Tyrant continues its run on Channel 4 this evening at 9pm with the second episode – Warrior. Channel 4 have put a series of short films, images and even (oh no…) an interview with yours truly at this site. Don’t forget the soundtrack is a free listen on this site.

Sergio is going to be shown at HotDocs in Ontario – click here for more details.

Lots of people (hundreds in fact!) have downloaded the sheet music for Crystallised Beauty this week, and I’m asking for suggestions for the next piece to be made available. Let me know at this page!

On this site, I’ve put up a couple more archive album tracks; Aqua Voce now online, together with Penitential Psalm.

Thanks for all the messages and comments – it’s great to hear from you…

fiddlewiddle.com

April 13, 2009
Easter free things!

Here’s a free Easter gift for the first 100 of you who click this link. It’s a free mp3 of a piece I wrote called Penitential Psalm – hear it here:[Audio http://radiomovies.wordpress.com/files/2009/04/02-penitential-psalm.mp3]

As I’ve mentioned many times in previous posts I’m a great believer in mp3s being legally free to download where the artist/writer/publisher can give their consent, particularly where the recording is of an event for which concert/theatre/film-goers have already paid an admission charge.

This secondary exploitation is often exploited in the true sense of the word with charges being levied for something which has technically never left the digital domain.

I think a rebroadcasting of material can be free in many cases without exploitation, and can act as a way of spreading the word about a great performer, group or writer. I love it when authors upload some of their books as free pdfs in the fairly certain knowledge that (if the material is great) people will go and buy physical copies of their other work. In the case of performers, it’s a great way of getting people to come to gigs.

Here are a couple of great sites for interesting classical mp3s – all free:

The European archive of classical recordings has over 8oo pages of LPs in mp3 format on its site as free downloads. These are extraordinary recordings featuring some of the world’s most historic performers.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has a really high quality concert series which it condenses into a regular podcast. The whole concert series is archived, and it shows great foresight on the part of the performers and the museum itself to make this available to anyone.

This week’s events/broadcasts:

David Starkey’s Henry Mind of a Tyrant is on this Easter on Channel 4 in the UK.

11th April: 7pm – Channel 4. Episode 1 Prince

13th April: 9pm – Channel 4. Episode 2 Warrior

You can hear my soundtrack for the series here for free, and a free Henry VIII download here!

Hope you have a happy and peaceful Easter.

April 11, 2009
Free Henry VIII track

Henry: Mind of a Tyrant with Dr David Starkey begins on Channel 4 this coming Monday at 9pm. Here’s a version of Taunder Naken from the soundtrack written for multitracked treble viols (melody by Henry VIII): [Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/ht91-schism-mix.mp3]

Download it from here if you like. The whole series soundtrack is gradually going online.

There are some fantastic events to celebrate Henry’s 500th anniversary – including the Tower of London exhibit pictured above as featured in today’s Guardian. The British Library is opening its exhibition shortly, but meanwhile it’s worth visiting the astounding Ritblatt Gallery of treasures.

April 1, 2009
Crystallised Beauty Sheet Music

Crystallised Beauty Sheet Music – it’s here…

After rather a lot of emails, I’ve finally got around to writing up the piano score of Crystallised Beauty. As everyone who’s asked for it seems very friendly and sociable, I decided to make it for two pianists…

You can still play it on your own if you prefer, but… to fit all the different parts in, four hands are better than two!

It’s free, but please don’t copy it anywhere else – if anyone wants a copy they can download it from here for nothing. If you want to give anything, a comment is always welcome!

Get the sheet music by clicking here!

listen to it here:[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/crystallised-beauty”]

Other things I’ve written

How to get the mp3…

If you’d like the mp3, it’s not commercially available yet – but – I can send it to you.

How?

Well, leave a comment below, mention the mp3 and (because I can then see your email details) I will forward you a link for the mp3 download. Easy!

Condron.us

March 30, 2009
radiomovies roundup

Latest show news. As you can see there’s a beautiful poster for the forthcoming Sergio directed by Greg Barker – due to be shown on HBO in June. This recently won Karen Schmeer the editing award at Sundance.I hope to put a number of the tracks online soon as a free stream.

Looking at the above I realise I’m lucky to work on projects where the PR material seems to be thought through…

In-I, my project with Juliette Binoche, Anish Kapoor and Akram Khan is in Beijing this week, having transferred from Shanghai. You can hear the score here.

It’s going to have a break before opening at BAM (Harvey Theatre), New York, for the latter part of September.

March 30, 2009
How to be cool

The Jimi Hendrix Experience had a shaky start…

March 30, 2009
Recent pieces for piano

I can’t play it well, but I love it all the same… Which other pieces would you like free sheet music for? Please let me know!

I’ve written quite a few pieces for piano recently, for various films and as concert works. (NB free download at the end)

Join me on Instagram for mp3 and sheet music updates

Sheet music for Crystallised Beauty

Here’s a track called Watermark for solo piano[Audio http://radiomovies.wordpress.com/files/2009/04/watermark.mp3]

Limited edition download here

Glenn Gould [Audio http://radiomovies.wordpress.com/files/2009/03/15-glenn-gould.mp3]

After the Moonlight (Piano Trio)[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/13-fast-gathering-tears.mp3]And… This is new too The Daguerreotype [Audio http://radiomovies.wordpress.com/files/2009/03/jb2-old-photos.mp3]Here’s another recorded in Finchcocks, a stately home and piano museum. The instrument used is a Viennese double strung piano – a very rare and extremely fragile instrument. [Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/04-moon-over-meadow.mp3]

The piece is (as yet) unnamed, but is based on the idea of an empty drawing room at night – except, that is, for the piano. It holds within its wood and strings snatches of music, harmonics and melodies that others have played on it… Any ideas for names gratefully accepted – the more literary the better!

Here’s a second piece recorded on a Steinway – a slow ballade waltz [Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/jb3-ballade.mp3]

Here’s a third piece called The Long Letter[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/07-10-long-letter.mp3]

Here’s the obvious one (of Jane Austen fame)… Crystallised Beauty – the (not often heard) full-length version of the track:[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/01-crystallised-beauty.mp3]Added today – Sheet music for Crystallised Beauty!

And here’s one called for Elena[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/22-9-for-elena.mp3]

This is a piece (with strings) called keep walking[Audio http://radiomovies.wordpress.com/files/2009/03/pssst.mp3]

Here’s the mp3 if you’d rather download it and hear it on your personal gramophone (!): keep walking by Philip Sheppard

If you like any of these pieces, check out Aqua Voce too, and remember to Join me on Instagram for mp3 and sheet music updates too!

alphainventions.com

Condron.us

March 28, 2009
Henry Mind of a Tyrant Transmission

Transmission dates for Henry VIII Mind of a Tyrant (presented by David Starkey) have been announced by Channel 4.

The Soundtrack is here as a free stream at this site…

March 25, 2009
Another unlikely foray into fashion

Lily Donaldson video by Nick Knight & Ruth Hogben for ShowStudio using Mechanical Waltz by Philip Sheppard

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAIZ6gXczw0]

I’ve been involved with a few projects with Nick Knight and his team at ShowStudio – despite my being to the fashion world what Boris Johnson is to speed skating…

The most insanely enjoyable of these was a project where we made 24 films in 24 hours – where the great John Gosling (Mekon) and I provided the live music. I ended up being styled by the head of YSL – Stefano Pilati (I was probably the chubbiest person he’s ever dealt with) and the whole photoshoot & film shoot was turned into a catalogue for Yves Saint Laurent.

He’s a real gent.

Just found a scene from that session… Jessica Miller looks at me as if she’s used to being written on while a random cellist plays at her…

March 15, 2009
radiomovies latest roundup…

I’ve just been finishing the soundtrack for the new David Starkey series for Channel 4, entitled Henry VIII: The Mind of a Tyrant . The music features the viol consort Fretwork and vocal consort

March 13, 2009
One day in Beijing… a very short film

An extract from my video diary from the day of the Beijing Olympics closing ceremony.[wpvideo Xm981dzk]

The Chinese rehearsal was extraordinary. I was able to talk to many of the performers, and filmed them from up close as they hurtled towards the stadium roof. This was shot on a very small HD camera – I’d drunk a lot of coffee so excuse the odd shake. (Also I’m a better musician than film maker – so please excuse any bad edits etc).

The most striking image was the silken volcano – really simple but very classy.

The music is a piece I wrote for string orchestra – as yet untitled…

Meanwhile our handover cast were getting ready in the compound for the very brief bus rehearsal.

More about the handover here.

March 12, 2009
Pssst! pass it on….

This animation is pretty gory.. but cool. When it gets to the more gothic 3rd section you can hear a piece of mine called keep walking…

If you like it – the full track is below plus the link to the mp3 if you’d rather hear it on your personal gramophone!

[wpvideo AWtyQOwh]listen to the full length track here:[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/pssst.mp3]

This from BoingBoing:

In “Legends of Exos” we are launched into a psychedelic land of stained glass, tracking a warrior on his way to battle. His attack segues into a lovable world of fuzzy woodland creatures but concludes with a finale that Burton fans will find comforting.

PSST!3 Pass It On is collaborative film project is composed of 17 films made by 51 teams of directors and animators from around the globe. Each film is broken into three parts — beginning, middle, and end — and each part is created by a different team.

download mp3

PSST PASS IT ON WEBSITE

March 10, 2009
Harrison's Chronometer online

New tracks added!

There are some new tracks added this week from past albums including Harrison’s Chronometer which I released as the other track on the EP length Glass Cathedral album, way back in 1999.

You’ll find them all in the sidebar to the right under Pages, including The Diver in the Crypt and In-I stage show.

Soon to come… the score of Sacred Monsters, (the Sylvie Guillem Akram Khan dance piece) and a very weird piece I wrote about the Venetian Underground System…

March 5, 2009
Broadcasts, films and shows this week

London Calling – Part one of Building the Olympic Dream

Tonight – 4th March 09 on BBC2 at 9pm

Features my score for the London Symphony Orchestra ‘This is London’ which was based on several well-known traditional British songs as well as The Shipping Forecast (as read by Zeb Soanes) and, of course, the Greenwich Time Signal. There’s also a new arrangement of the UK National Anthem (in order to make it a bit more lyrical). Also should be a chance to hear the version of Whole Lotta Love I worked on with the LSO, Jimmy Page and Leona Lewis (with the correct clear sound… rather than what was broadcast!).

Much more about the show here

Documentary about In-I premieres this week on French TV

Akram Khan and Juliette Binoche

Jeudi 5 mars 2009

March 4, 2009
This is London…

Olympic Documentary London Calling – screens this week

I’ve just heard that this Wednesday (4th March 2009) sees the broadcast of the BBC Documentary ‘London Calling’, which, according to the BBC website;

…follows the exploits of the Ceremonies Team as they prepare to mount the eight-minute show to mark the official handover of responsibility for the Olympic Games from Beijing to London…

Sneak Peak here

I was the music director for the handover, which involved writing a score for the London Symphony Orchestra (based on several well-known traditional British songs as well as The Shipping Forecast and the Greenwich Time Signal) as well as re-arranging the UK National Anthem (in order to make it a bit more lyrical).

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/1592686]

The show had to culminate in a well-known song, so, together with co-producer Steve Robson, I recorded Jimmy Page and Leona Lewis performing Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin together with (the brilliant bass player) Guy Pratt and Geoff Dugmore (the most civilised, yet powerful drummer you’ll ever find). We laid down the backing at Olympic Studios with as near to an authentic setup as possible – even down to the risers for the drums and correct amps.

Hearing that riff played by that man in that room.

I Love My Job.

Guy Pratt, Jimmy Page and Geoff Dugmore at Olympic Studios http://radiomovies.wordpress.com

I suspect that the programme will make fairly nailbiting viewing as there were major highs and lows throughout the long development process for everyone, culminating in the adrenalin rush of the show at the Bird’s Nest Stadium – but followed by the revelation that the direct feed of music and sound (which we’d spent months preparing) didn’t appear to find its way from the stadium to TV sets.

For me there were several moments that still seem a little unreal –

At the Bird's Nest Stadium before the show

Firstly, being in Air studios conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, who were blissfully unaware throughout the recording session that the ‘James‘ I was on intercom with in the control room was a certain guitar player…
Secondly, realising just how technically and musically accomplished Leona Lewis is as an artist. I’ve not worked with many singers in the pop world who can discuss coloratura technique, and operas by Purcell and Bellini. Actually, there was one… Jeff Buckley ! (Check this out…) But Leona can really sing with heart and soul, balanced with quite astounding technique.

But also… Chris Hoy, Jamie Staff and Victoria Pendleton (plus medals) coming to my place for a drink before the cast party. I think I’ll tell my grandchildren about that…

Here’s my version of the National Anthem performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and the singers from The National Youth Theatre.[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/anthem-july-20th-1.mp3]

Flag Rehearsal

February 28, 2009
Tracks and albums go online

I like sites with long streamed mp3s where I can listen to music while I work – kind of webpage radio stations for each album, show or film project (where I own the tracks or have permission from the publishers). I’ve had lots of nice requests for the scores to recent stage shows, and I don’t want to charge people for the music – especially if they’ve already paid for a ticket!

I’ve had a really encouraging response from posts such as this.

So..

February 24, 2009
radiomovies latest round-up

Carceri III The round tower – Piranesi

radiomovies latest round-up

So… The Jane Austen lovers have come out in force behind a certain piece of piano music, In-I has opened at the Sydney Opera House – and the score / soundtrack is now online here and Channel 4 are to shortly announce the transmission dates of David Starkey’s new series on Henry VIII – the Mind of a Tyrant.

Excitingly.. for me anyway, I found the one Jeff Buckley bootleg recording I’ve been looking for for years.

Meanwhile I’ve started to put my albums online. I realised that it was ten years since I recorded The Glass Cathedral, and so I’ve decided to release it as a one tune radio station.. okay, so it’s actually a webpage with a Piranesi engraving and a tune… but, as with the dance scores, i like the idea of people being able to dial it up and listen. A lot of people have paid to see concerts, films, shows – for which I’m really grateful… why should I ask people for more money, and anyway, what’s wrong with giving the odd tune away?

February 19, 2009
Juliette Binoche & Akram Khan In-I Soundtrack now online

The dance project In-I starring Akram Khan and Juliette Binoche continues its world tour – taking in venues from Beijing to Sydney. I’ve worked with Akram for a number of years now, as a cellist and writer. Our previous project together was Sacred Monsters in which he partnered Sylvie Guillem.

My score for In-I uses lots of multitracked cello, prepared piano and electric cello as well as samples of Juliette’s voice which is, to say the least highly lyrical.

I promised I’d put the score online – so here it is!

Casanova to steps to love[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/aj1-casanova-sep-51.mp3]

Skin solo[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/aj8-skin-solo.mp3]

The apotheosis[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/the-apotheosis.mp3]

I may make these files downloadable if possible – let me know if that’s preferred.

The show has a truly exceptional design team in artist Anish Kapoor and lighting designer, Michael Hulls.

Michael has recently been working with the genius Robert LePage and is (to my mind) the Howard Hodgkin of the illumination world.

Other links:

Here are some highlights from the show presently on youtube:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw-4BXwS7q8&hl=en&fs=1]

Excerpts from an interview with Juliette here:

http://cinematicpassions.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/juliette-binoche-dances/

February 14, 2009
Dr David Starkey series on Henry VIII announced with score devised by Philip Sheppard

Dr David Starkey photographed by Phil Coomes

David Starkey is to produce a four-part “psychological profile” of Henry VIII for Channel 4. The as-yet-untitled series will go beyond the facts of Henry’s six wives and his split with the Catholic church to piece together a sense of his character and motivations. Soundtrack available here.

The series will be broadcast in April, to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII’s accession to the throne and a major British Library exhibition on the monarch.

The soundtrack has been composed by Philip Sheppard and is based on music written by Henry himself, as well as themes drawn from Tudor contemporary composers such as Philippe Verdelot and Robert Fayrfax. The score is being performed by Philip Sheppard, together with the superb vocal consort Alamire (directed by Dr David Skinner) and viol consort Fretwork.

Click the play button below to hear a preview of one of the tracks to be featured in the programme – ‘O Dolce Nocte’ by Philip Sheppard after Philippe Verdelot, featuring Alamire:

The first 60-minute episode will show Henry as a highly intelligent child, while subsequent episodes will paint him as a brilliant “A-list celebrity” character with an over-developed ego and “solipsistic sense of self”.

David Sington, who will direct the series for Red House Dox Productions, said:

“[David Starkey] will ask which events changed Henry, and in changing him, changed the British character. He was convinced of his own destiny and shaped us as an island nation, cut off from the continent…. He’s not a Bluebeard character, however. He emerges as a sympathetic character even though he does terrible things.”

Indeed, the Daily Mail has just run a story, resulting from one of Starkey’s more surprising discoveries; Henry’s possible use of a stairlift towards the end of his life.

February 11, 2009
How to be a composer for new media
Tips for breaking into the covert world of composition for new media, such as film soundtracks, TV, adverts, arranging and games.
[digg=http://digg.com/music/How_to_be_a_composer_for_new_media_tips]
How get on the path to becoming a film, television, web or games composer

Music technology tips by Philip Sheppard February 2009

(These are key points from lectures I’ve given recently, and a recent article for Classroom Music Magazine)
1. WORK really hard. Work harder than anyone else you’ve ever met.
2. If you don’t love working really hard you won’t enjoy being a composer (and believe me, it’s a great job)
3. Ask people to show you how they do what they do. No composer minds being asked how they put a track together
4. Learn how sound works – if you study the physics of sound, you’ll be more likely to be able to shape it into agreeable forms
5. Make a portfolio of what you do. A showreel can be virtual – myspace is a start but can look fairly horrible. WordPress is excellent as a shop window
6. Specialize in something unique. A small business advisor will call this your USP – Unique Selling Point. (I got into the business by doing leftfield things with string instruments)
7. Always work with people who are better than you. I do, and I hope they can’t tell. this keeps me on my toes, and I learn from every job
8. Network network network… but in a cool way. If a player writes to you asking for work, it’s less appealing than if they write to invite you to a gig isn’t it? A mailing list/website with news and forthcoming events is a surefire way for people to see how busy you are. Once you’re seen to be terribly busy, this will attract more work. this sounds like a catch 22 – but it isn’t. You are likely to be self-employed, so employ yourself now!
9. Listen emotionally, analytically and critically to everything. If you love a piece you hear, try to work out why you love it. Dissect it into its elements. Equally if music doesn’t move you or grab you, try to work out exactly why.
10. Always carry a bit of manuscript paper with you (or a dictaphone if you don’t read music). Moleskine do really nice pocket manuscript books. Your best tunes will always hit you when you’re not looking for them
11. see point number one…
12. Coffee is your friend and enemy. Keep it close, but use it wisely.
How I got into it all…

I trained as a cellist at the Royal Academy of Music where I have been a cello Professor since about ’94. I had several composition lessons there as a second study, studying with Melanie Daiken, before second studies were abolished! However, by that point I was heavily ensconced in the Contemporary Music scene.

Luckily the RAM had a policy of drawing in great living composers, so I was able to play under Berio, Tippett, Messaien and many other truly inspiring musicians. At the same time I felt compelled to start improvising, and joined a quintet with Keith Tippett which specialised in ‘spontaneous composition’. At this point I learnt the value of knowing when not to play…

I’m motivated to write music that I’d like to hear – which sounds obvious and a bit selfish, but, it’s a pretty good filter.

My ‘break’ into composition came when I tried to multitrack some pieces on the cello, was encouraged to put them on a CD, that sold well and found its way onto the desk of an ad agency who threw me in at the deep end to devise the ident music for a major broadcaster… which was a learning curve, and a great break.

Pros and Cons:
Pros – I love my job. Every day is different. I can be based at home and still write and record (very different from my former touring existence). I meet really exciting people – last year it was 5 moonwalkers in one day.
I’m my own boss. I can be creative and still be working.
Cons not many.. Very late nights – but, I love working late. Oh yes – developing a studio tan (that’s very very pale) and having a habit of buying a new Mac every year and convincing myself I really need it.

Good luck…

©Philip Sheppard 2009
February 8, 2009
Haruki Murakami – lyrical genius

I reckon Haruki Murakami is a lyrical genius…

I’ve finally started reading Haruki Murakami’s books. I bought Norwegian Wood at a second hand bookshop and steamed through it, becoming increasingly upset that I was nearer to the end than the beginning. It’s an immersive and profoundly lyrical book. I’ve ordered everything else he’s written in a fit of impetuousness. When I was at school I read Yukio Mishima’s book, The Sailor who fell from grace from the sea which had a similar effect on me. Unfortunately Mishima became bizarrely locked into his own fascistic ideas as he got nearer to his self-inflicted end, whereas Murakami appears to shy away from the cult of his own personality.

Complicite at the Barbican 2003

I went to see London production of The Elephant Vanishes back in 2003 at the Barbican, when Simon McBurney directed a radical interpretation of three of Murakami’s short stories. The production used a cello piece I’d written based on a Turner Painting (Rain, Steam and Speed) for the scene when a Tokyo housewife finds escape from her drudgery of routine by forcing herself into a state of insomnia. The character was represented by four different actors moving in a constant short-cycled blur.

I have never seen anything so utterly different onstage (though what was being acted was too good for my music I fear…). The combination of technology, astounding physical theatre and magic realism imprinted images and emotions that only surfaced a few weeks later when I realised I’d seen something exceptional.

I’ve got the same sense from Norwegian Wood – the story is looping in my head like an infinished scrap of music. This man’s a genius. Now let’s leave him alone so he can keep at it…

The author Haruki Murakami

February 7, 2009
UNKLE track on Top Gear

Pathetically excited to hear the track I worked on with UNKLE – James, Aiden Lavelle and Pablo Clements being used in Top Gear for the race across Japan. It originally appeared as an advert for BMW – see below. The brief was to rework elements from Beethoven 9 into something suitable.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfE90BrM-qU&hl=en&fs=1]

The track features on our latest album End Titles Redux on the SurrenderAll label. Having trained as a classical player and composer, it’s incredible to meet musicians with such sonic awareness. ‘Sound design’ is a casually used term, but UNKLE have an ability to cross the threshold between sound and that which is tactile.

I’ve heard people say that architecture is frozen music, I’d argue that music can be melted architecture.

Here’s Bernstein conducting Beethoven 9 in probably the greatest performance of the work at the Freedom Concert in Berlin:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imv2M64t_og&hl=en&fs=1]

February 6, 2009
Beijing in Miniature

Beijing Olympics Closing Ceremony Rehearsal in Miniature © Philip Sheppard 2009

Here’s a photo I took of the Beijing Olympics Closing Ceremony rehearsal from the sound control desk as the Chinese rehearsed their incredible finale at great speed.

This was after we’d rehearsed our Red London Bus (containing Jimmy Page and Leona Lewis and a certain footballer) getting around the carpeted track.

I used tiltshiftmaker to give it an extra level of unreality – see also picture of very large Taiko Drum from the same rehearsal.

February 4, 2009
'Sergio' at Sundance

I’ve recently completed work on the score for a new documentary by Greg Barker called ‘Sergio’. It’s based on the extraordinary biography of Sergio Vieira de Mello by Samantha Power called Chasing the Flame.

It has just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The soundtrack features an orchestral score with the beautiful solo playing of Brazilian guitarist Ife Tolentino who made the score come alive for me.

Chasing the flame website here

The Gstaad Project here

another review

Extract from The Observer, Sunday 25 January 2009

I’m glad to find a buzz around a film brought here by the BBC and HBO. This is Sergio, and it recounts the life and death of Sergio Vieira de Mello, heroic womaniser and daredevil James Bond/RFK of humanitarian politics, who was buried under the rubble caused by a car bomb, dying in Baghdad. I wanted for a change to see a film about someone admirable, and I can see people crying through the film. A Variety critic tells me that Sergio does catch something of a new mood, mournful but in quest of something to admire.

February 4, 2009
Beijing 08 closing ceremony rehearsals

[caption id=”attachment_5″ align=”alignnone” width=”500″ caption=”Rehearsals for the closing ceremony of the 2008 Beijing games

February 3, 2009

Category: Soundtracks

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