I’m so happy to be speaking with you, Christy!  Thanks for joining us.  First things first, I’d love to start with how you got started in composing.  What has your career looked like so far?

Wonderful to speak with you too, Connor! I am a huge fan of yours! I got my start as a composer in student/indie film and worked for some incredible composers including Steve London and Sharon Farber. I got into production music before I even realized I was in production music back in the late 2000s, building an in-house music catalog for a production company that specialized in behind the scenes and DVD extra content. From there I ended up getting the job at 5 Alarm Music (now Slipstream Music) in 2012, as Music Director and In-House Composer, and I am so blessed to continue in my job and the industry to this day. I have continued to work in independent film, TV, advertising, etc in my freelance career and I feel really lucky to have a handful of super talented directors I’ve established really long and fruitful relationships with. 

You are Senior Music Director, and also an in-house composer for Slipstream Music, a leading music licensing platform. Can you tell us about your work at the company?  What sorts of projects do you work on there?

Absolutely, I have worked for 5 Alarm Music for the past 12 years and we were recently acquired by the amazing team at Slipstream Music, led by Dan Demole and Jesse Korwin. This is such a cool opportunity for me because the Slipstream team is so dynamic and innovative – there are some really exciting things coming down the pipeline to take the production music industry into its next era. As far as my work goes, every day I am pitching music from our catalog to music supervisors, studios, brands, creators, and businesses all across the spectrum of media. I also love getting to work with composers and songwriters as a producer on albums for the catalog, and take on custom projects as a composer myself. One thing I have always really loved about this job is the fact that each day I get to solve a bunch of little mysteries – what track, out of the hundreds of thousands we represent, is perfect for this spot in a major studio feature and where should I start looking for it? Can I hunt down a perfect public domain classical piece that not only fits within the time period limitations of the period piece, prestige TV show, but also fits the context of the specific scene?  Where can I find the perfect song with the right feel and lyrics for this big emotional spot in the popular reality dating show everyone loves? Each day is different with a new set of briefs coming my way, from some of the most creative and celebrated people working in the industry on some of the best shows, films, ads and trailers. And sometimes I myself get to create that perfect track? It’s so much fun, so varied and keeps me on my toes!

Can you tell us more about some of the amazing labs and fellowships you’ve done?  You were a 2018 Sundance Institute Film Music and Sound Design Lab Composing Fellow, as well as a 2019 ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop Fellow.  Congratulations on those accomplishments!

Thank you – I really can’t stress enough how much these workshops helped me develop as a composer. The Sundance Lab was crucial for me as a busy working mom to have 2 weeks in paradise, away from the usual hustle and bustle of everyday life, to work with a fantastic director in a sort of isolated atmosphere and be mentored by some of the best composers, music editors and sound designers that exist. I really wanted to focus on finding my voice as a composer, and this experience provided me the ability to slow down, think, listen and discover a lot of new things about the art and craft of film music. The music I wrote at the Lab is some of my favorite music I have ever composed, and every time I listen to it I’m right back in those moments, taking notes from composer mentors I had admired for decades, and hearing the world class musicians that were brought in for the live recording. The pictures of me at that recording session still make me smile because my face hurt so much from grinning and laughing with joy that day!  I am forever grateful to Reema Iqbal, Doreen Ringer Ross and Peter Golub who made this possible for me, and to my fellow composers that attended in 2018 with me.

The ASCAP workshop in 2019 was also absolutely amazing – taking place over the course of a month in LA, it culminated in a huge orchestral scoring session on the Fox lot. A large percentage of the players who were present at our recording session had just come from performing John Williams’ score for the most recent Star Wars movie – as a JW fangirl this was such a huge honor for me! Jen Harmon and Mike Todd from ASCAP selected me for this workshop and I can’t thank them enough. The entire month was full of precious experiences – getting to visit and hear words of wisdom from so many huge LA composers, working with a super talented and knowledgeable orchestrator at Joann Kane, talking with film scoring agents and studio creatives about the realities of this career. It was edifying, inspiring and ridiculously fun. 

I’ve been told to ask you sometime about your being on the set of the hit CBS show “Scorpion” performing your Bach arrangement with a six-figure robotic arm taped to your forearm… so this is me officially asking you about this!

Ha, yes this is a fun story from one of my custom projects – we were asked to create a one-handed arrangement of a Bach piece for the show, which I put together, recorded and sent off. I was later invited to set for the filming of the scene, where one of the characters is a veteran trying out a very fancy new robotic prosthetic by playing piano. And this character was played by a very charming, handsome actor (and real-life veteran!) – I ended up needing to sort of crouch behind him and snake my arm, with the robotic arm on top, in between his arm and body to place my hand on the piano and play the piece! Of course I was removed in post and the scene turned out really funny and clever. I loved being on set for a day, eating lunch with the actors and crew. I also really enjoy any time I get to visit the set of a project I am scoring and see how much work goes into every single aspect of the shoot!

As a composer you are super versatile- you’ve racked up credits across most all genres- I find the jack-of-all-genres skill so impressive and useful.  What sort of projects do you like working on?  Does your process change at all depending on the genre of a project or is the approach always the same?

At Slipstream, for custom and catalog projects, I usually handle music falling into the piano, chamber, orchestral categories. As a film composer, I absolutely love exploring new ways of combining these strengths with electronic elements and even some sound design. My wonderful director and friend Karl Stelter gave me the opportunity recently on his film “(dis)connected” to explore this more. Whatever genre I am trying out (even when I did a jazz score for a short!) I always want to be focusing on the story. I want the music to serve the film, the characters, the director’s vision, and be an element that only enhances and doesn’t draw you out of the total immersion of the story’s development. So that’s the place I begin and no matter the genre or style, everything will grow from there!

I listened to a playlist of yours from 5 Alarm Music called “String Theory”, and I really loved every track, especially “Path to Bliss”.  I also really enjoyed your soundtrack to the film “The Lackey” directed by Shaun Piccinino.  Can you tell us about these projects?  I encourage readers to listen to these compositions.

Thank you Connor – “String Theory” is one of my favorite albums I ever worked on. Even though it was written and recorded some years ago, we purposefully wanted to write a neo-classical album that would have an evergreen, fresh feel and I think we succeeded! I wrote half the music on that album and the other half is written by the talented Daphne Chen, who is also a very sought-after studio musician in LA. “The Lackey” was one of my first feature films I ever wrote the music for – I collaborated with the guitarist husband of a friend who is in a worldwide-touring metal band. My husband also plays the Japanese flute on that score. I got to combine lots of styles in the music  and I think I was able to really complement the more emotional side of the film, a crime thriller with epic martial arts fights.  It was obvious at the time that Shaun is an incredible talent as a writer and director and it’s been very cool to see his career blossom and flourish – Shaun, let’s work together again! 

Is there anything exciting on the horizon for you either career-wise or personally? 

There are a few really exciting things brewing in my freelance career. I’m writing an album of piano music, and I’m 100% focused on the mission of Slipstream and growing the business through my creative efforts. I’m also mentoring a really talented student composer from my undergrad alma mater, Loyola University New Orleans! Personally, I am just really enjoying watching my children become musicians and find just as much joy and happiness from music as I do. 

Interview by Connor Cook

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