​First off, congratulations on Two Breaths winning the College Emmy for Best Drama Series! Can you tell us what that moment meant to you, especially as a co-composer on the project (alongside Alex Winkler)?

Thank you! This film is really unique and absolutely beautiful, so to see the team get such recognition made us all feel really happy and grateful to have been part of this adventure. The film has had an impressive festival run with 9 nominations and 28 wins so far, including a nomination as finalist at 2024 Festival de Cannes American Pavilion Filmmaker Showcase, a Grand Prize Win for Best Women Student Filmmakers West Region awarded to director Kateryna Kurganska by the Directors Guild of America (2024), and 3 wins for Best Original Score at Indie Short Fest (August 2024), Independent Shorts Awards at the Los Angeles International Film Festival (October 2024), and Los Angeles International Children’s Film Festival (2025). Two Breaths’ festival circuit is now almost over, so to conclude it with such an incredible win feels like a wonderful achievement. 

This College Emmy Award is a testimony to all the hard work, passion and dedication the entire crew has put into making Kateryna’s vision come to life in such an artistic way. I am so glad that Alex and I were able to contribute to the story with our music, and helped it resonate emotionally with the audience and the jury. Having worked on numerous other award-winning and acclaimed films such as “Everywhere You Go”, “Someone Loves You”, “Witchcrafted”, “Mr. Crocket”, “Where the Sand meets the Sea”, “Homo Verum”, “Iris”, “Turtle”, and “Dashing Through The Snow”, I understood the necessary structure and approach that was needed within the film, and I was able to draw on that experience to help shape a score that elevated the emotional journey of Two Breaths in a way that honored its intimate and powerful storytelling.

You and Alex created a unique sonic identity for Two Breaths, featuring your vocals, and ethnic instruments like bass pan flute and drums to create a strong emotional impact. What led you to these choices, and how do they reflect the story’s dystopian, Hawaiian setting?

Two Breaths is the story of Ava, a little girl stranded on an island that was decimated by a radioactive disaster. It is about her grief for her grandfather, who has died from exposure to the radiation, but also her love for him and the island that used to be her home and that she now has to leave behind in order to save herself. It is about the beautiful wild luxuriant nature, the ocean, the spirit of the island in the form of a manta ray. It is about her memories, her ancestors, and the magic that can be found hovering at the junction of life and death. It is a powerful story and we wanted our music to make it justice. We wanted to give a voice (literally) to the ocean, to embody its vastness and permanence, how it has been here way before us and will remain after us. So we chose the oldest music instrument known to mankind: the human voice. 

I have always enjoyed recording vocals in my pieces and experimenting with them. For this film, we needed the vocals to feel as liquid as water, and to ebb and flow like the tide, which I tried to emulate with my singing. We also shaped our strings like waves, with many crescendos and decrescendos. The vocals weren’t meant to only represent the ocean, but also the mythical manta ray spirit of the island, Two Breaths, dwelling in its waters. So the director insisted I re-record all the vocals so they would sound even wispier and breathier and create ethereal textures that would be as light and haunting as that spirit. I also added whispered Hawaiian phrases, to give our soundscape a spiritual and mystic feel verging on the magical, like the voices of the ancestors reaching out to Ava through the manta ray spirit.

We also wanted the music to give a sense of location and culture, but in a way that wouldn’t be a cliché, and that could refer to different islands in the world, not only specifically Hawaii. To achieve that, I thought of the bass pan flute, which we sprinkled in as an airy and vibrant texture and became one of our signature sounds. We also used rain sticks, singing meditation bowls and drums to add more color to the island’s magic, nature and wilderness.

Finally, at the other end of the spectrum, there is the man-made radioactive disaster that devastates the island. To symbolize that menace, Alex recorded a saxophone “cry” that he then processed, and which became, with the vocals and the bass pan flute, another emblematic sound of our score.

Please share a bit about the collaboration and the creative process, what it was like, and how you divided the composition duties. 

What I love when working with Alex is that we truly get to collaborate and mesh our sounds and music aesthetics to come up with something unique that neither one of us would have composed on our own. Usually, I tend to be more thematic, and Alex excels at creating soundscapes and new sounds. I was in charge of the more ethereal parts relating to the ocean, the spirit manta ray, and nature; and Alex was in charge of the more urgent moments and man-made catastrophes that befall the little girl. But there were many scenes where both elements were present. In that instance, we would send the cue back and forth, adding instruments and making suggestions, until the cue felt complete and coherent musically. 

Sometimes we would collaborate vertically on a cue: Alex would send a base, and I would improvise vocals on top. Sometimes our approach to scoring was more horizontal: one of us would start a cue cue, and then send it to the other as the scene evolved and we would have to take extra care with the transition where musical elements from both of us were overlapping. We used the same samples and reverbs for uniformity. I would record a vocal or cello motiv, and Alex would reuse bits of that audio, but process it and make it his own before incorporating it into his scene. 

I really enjoy co-composing with Alex. It is an opportunity to learn from one another, to brainstorm and bounce ideas off one another, and to experiment and combine our music styles, and I love the composing dynamic and friendship we have created over the years.

Let’s talk about another recent project of yours- Lokja, an introspective drama which won Best LGBTQIA+ film twice, at the 2024 France USA Film Festival and the 2024 Cannes Short Film Festival. Lokja has a very introspective tone. How did you approach scoring a story that’s so profoundly internal and emotional?

Lojka is a striking film about inclusion, understanding and finding peace. It starts with grief, and a whirlwind of memories that cause tremendous emotional upheaval to the main character. As soon as I read the script, I was moved by the story, and it immediately transported me to that emotional space. 

But then, there was still the matter of finding the right instrumental color palette. I did a first draft with strings and piano. For some reason, it didn’t feel exactly right, and the director, Jay (Jean Lepeudry), felt that way too. It was by taking that first draft apart and talking it through with Jay that we were able to hone in on what was missing: it needed to feel more desperate, almost angry, as exuberant as the flames, flickering and crackling in the fireplace that the main character is staring at while her thoughts are churning inside her head. So I started again from scratch, concentrating on that frustration, desperation and anger, and on the visuals of those flickering vibrant flames. And suddenly, it seemed obvious to me: it had to be the violin, not a tearful cliché violin, but a virtuoso whirlwind of a violin. The director loved the idea, and it ended up defining the whole score’s identity. 

The palette for Lokja — virtuoso violin, but also vocals, and church organ—is so distinctive. What drew you to those instruments? How do they reflect the identity and emotional journey of the protagonist in the film, and how do they evolve throughout the film?

Once we agreed on the violin, Jay gave me full license to be really free and think outside the box. We both liked the exuberance of the violin and, as the character’s anguish and agitation grew, we felt we could push the envelope even further. The church organ is very powerful and dramatic, and it seemed to bring that sense of desperation and doom to its climax. It is also a religious and spiritual instrument, and as the main character is also dealing with her grief and conflicting emotions regarding her late father, it seemed on point.

As for the vocals, they are the voices of Lokja. They chant and assert her new name as a trans-woman. They also evolve into warmer textures and chords, as Lokja finds solace and soothing in the embrace of her mother and the newly discovered love of her father.

Can you tell us about your collaboration with the director on Lokja? Were there any creative breakthroughs or challenges in aligning your vision with theirs?

I love working with Jay. He’s a very passionate and talented director. Talking about the story and the characters’ psychology and emotional arc is always effortless with him, and very effective, because we share the same vocabulary and core understanding of what the music should make us feel. 

When putting words on feelings and music, misunderstandings occur so easily. There are so many ways to translate words like “sad” or “simple” into music, and sometimes, using these generic words, the director and composer don’t always mean the same thing. But with Jay, somehow, we’re always aligned emotionally, and his feedback is always clear and on point. Those creative discussions with him really shaped the final musical result.  

Jay is also the only director I have ever worked with who doesn’t use temp music. Temporary music (or “temp”) is often used in early edits to simulate the mood or style of music that could work for each scene, and give a pace for the editor to cut to. Temp music becomes quite restrictive, especially when the director has become so used to hearing it that they’re hoping the composer will mimic it or come up with very similar music, which leaves little room for originality. But Jay gives me total creative freedom and most importantly, his trust.

You not only compose music for film, you have also worked on trailers. Does your approach to scoring trailers differ much from writing film music?

Indeed, I have had the honor of contributing to numerous other trailers, TV series, and other motion pictures productions. I will take the example of the trailer I scored for the feature film “Hi, How Are You?” directed by Clemy Clarke, which was just released on Amazon Prime Video in March 2025. Clemy needed music that would be able to have a lot of impact and convey the essence, the tone and the main emotions of her feature length film in 1 minute and 10 seconds. And it had to be memorable and striking, so I constructed it like a song. But it also still had to be synchronized to the trailer picture and work with cuts and beats of it. 

Clemy wanted something joyful and dynamic, but also bittersweet and evocative of outer space. For the joy and the energy, I chose a style that leaned way more into pop than I had ever done before, and it was a really cool discovery. I also sprinkled in some of my vocals, but I used them almost like a synth, with sporadic notes, to create the illusion that they had been triggered by the press of a button. That way, they still belonged to that pop realm, but I also kept them fairly natural and unprocessed so they would still have that slightly nostalgic timber that Clemy liked. I also created my own synth sounds to emulate my own version of a quirky outer space. 

When writing for film, you have more time to establish themes and make them evolve throughout. But for trailers, you have to go straight to the point and be impactful and striking in a very short amount of time, while staying true to the story. It’s a different exercise but I enjoy it a lot too! 

Beyond your lead composer roles, you’ve had an incredible range of involvement in other projects—from studio cellist and vocalist to booth reader and transcribing vocals by ear. How do these roles inform your work as a composer?

My musical journey started 24 years ago, when I began to learn the cello. I was living in Germany at the time, and also sang in the children’s choir, as part of professional productions of the Opera House of Bonn. I feel this greatly impacted the way I approach music composition, usually thematically and in lines, whereas composers who grew up playing the piano for instance often tend to think more vertically and harmonically. When composing, I naturally gravitate towards strings and vocals whenever warranted. Sample libraries have improved considerably over the years, but playing or singing feels so much more natural and idiomatic, and it has become an integral part of my workflow to systematically record myself. I also love experimenting with aleatoric techniques and reinventing how I use my vocals and instrument in my own scores, but also when recording for my composer colleagues, at my home studio or theirs.

Regarding some of my other roles, I feel very fortunate to have been a member of Christopher Lennertz’s music team from 2021 to 2023. Chris was the lead composer on a number of high profile projects, and gave me many opportunities to grow and learn by his side. He trusted me with interesting creative tasks, which I am forever grateful for. I was responsible for arranging some cues for Season 3 of the Amazon Prime Video Series “The Boys” as well as the Disney+ feature film “Dashing Through the Snow” directed by Tim Story and starring Ludacris and Lil Rel Howery. I did some music editing on Season 1 of the Amazon Prime Video series “Sausage Party: Foodtopia”. 

I also transcribed vocals by ear (several intertwined lead singers and choir with multiple voicings from one single audio file) and created sheet music for the 2023 Disneyland Fireworks Show “Wondrous Journeys”, as well as the animated film “Pacemaker” composed and produced by Chris, which won best Animation Short at a number of festivals in 2023 and 2024 and received a nomination to the 2024 Annie Awards for Outstanding Achievement for Music in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production, as well as a nomination for Best original Song in a Short Film at the 2023 Hollywood Music in Media Awards (HMMA). I mocked-up highly realistic orchestral sound demos for some parts of the music used for the Wondrous Journeys Fireworks Show, which premiered at Disneyland Anaheim in January 2023.

I booth read for Chris on numerous occasions, at big recording sessions at Warner Brothers Studios (for “Dashing Through The Snow” for instance) and Ocean Way in Nashville for Seasons 1 of Amazon Prime Video series “Gen V” and “Sausage Party Foodtopia”. During recording sessions, the booth reader is the one giving critical musical feedback to the players in between takes. Usually, the players are sight reading and given the pace and high cost of those big recording sessions, they usually have 3 takes to get it right, and then we move on to the next cue. So giving precise, efficient and specific feedback to the players regarding articulation, intonation, dynamic shaping etc. is essential. I have always particularly enjoyed this role, which gave me a chance to have a direct creative impact on the performance. Just being in the studio with so many talented musicians is such a humbling and exciting experience!

Audiomachine sessions are known for their cinematic scale. What was your experience like contributing as a cellist to those epic textures?

I really enjoy all my collaborations with Audiomachine. It is wonderful to be in a bigger recording room, making music with others and not just by myself. I like the feeling of the music coming to life with the combined playing of all the performers, and that I’m part of something bigger than myself. 

The sessions usually last 6 or 7 hours a day, and the players (including myself) are all discovering the music for the first time and sight reading. It usually takes about 3 takes to nail it, and then we’re on to the next track. Those sessions are very fast-paced and intense, but incredibly rewarding, as we’re taken on a musical journey that covers a vast range of styles throughout the day. The team of composers at Audiomachine are very talented and a joy to be around. It is a great opportunity to record for them – and so much fun!

Interview by Nami Melumad

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