You have written the score for the 2-hour ballet ‘Atonement’, by choreographer Cathy Marston. Can you  talk about your experience composing for a ballet?  

It was a brilliant experience. I’ve never written for ballet before, so it was amazing to have this opportunity  and I loved the creative process and working with Cathy.  She was really inspiring and clear about her  emotional direction, but also gave me creative freedom and was a great collaborator. Writing a ballet score  was a lot harder than scoring a film as the music has to be continuous and work as a stand-alone piece, but at  the same time work with the choreography and emotions and, as Atonement is a narrative ballet, help tell the  story through the music.

How do you balance creating music that stands on its own while also supporting and enhancing the dancers’  movements and storytelling? 

When writing for film I like to compose music that stands on its own while also supporting and enhancing the  story and visuals, so in some ways writing for ballet wasn’t that different. It definitely helped that I’ve scored  lots of silent films, where the music also has to be continuous and stand on its own whilst also working with  the images and fitting the emotions on screen and, in the case of the silent war films I’ve scored, help provide  a structure. The challenge with Atonement was writing a 2 hour orchestral work before the choreography was  set, inspired by Cathy’s vision, the scenario and Ian McEwan’s book. 

I used recurring themes or motifs to help tell the story, inspired by discussions with Cathy e.g. for the nurses  theme, Cathy said they were neat, precise, orderly and she did some actions to describe how she may  choreograph this, so I wrote a theme in 12/8 with pizzicato strings and staccato woodwind which matched  what she was describing. Other characters had their own theme or instrument – there’s a love theme, and the cello for Robbie and the violin for Cecilia – so that in the romantic moments, and the passionate library Tango  scene, the two instruments intertwine. I wrote simple piano music for the start, as in this ballet Briony is a  choreographer (rather than a writer), and at the start she is creating a ballet (rather than a play). I then came  up with the idea that, as in the book Briony is the narrator, in this ballet the piano should be the central  character for Briony, so the piano leads the whole story and develops in the same way that Briony does, and  so the music also works as a kind of narrator. In Act 2 they have all grown up and it is set in war time, so the  music becomes much more sophisticated and layered, and themes are combined (e.g. the nurses, war and  soldiers’ themes as the dancers enter and exit the stage). In the Epilogue, Briony has dementia and is looking  back, so the music references earlier music but also has an electronic element. I created a soundscape for the  start using recordings of the dancers and sounds on stage and treated them with reverse effects to create the  feeling of memories in her head that come and go, morphing and phasing. I combined this with the orchestra – bowed vibraphone, bowed crotale, percussion rumblings and strings playing col legno tratto and harmonics.  So the way the music progressed and developed also helped tell the story and provided a strong structure for  the ballet.

With ‘Atonement’ premiering first in Zurich in April 2024 and then making its American debut with the  Joffrey Ballet and Lyric Opera Orchestra in October 2024, how did the different settings or collaborations  influence your experience of the production?

It was great to have the premiere in Zurich as rehearsals were spread out – they flew me over for the first  orchestra-only rehearsal, which was great as I got to hear the score being rehearsed alone, and the conductor  Jonathan Lo and I got to refine certain musical elements and clarify the finer details of the performance. I was  then invited over for the week before the premiere and it was so magical seeing it all come together – the  choreography, dancers, orchestra, set design, costumes and all the many people involved in putting this on. It  was brilliant to be a part of that process.  

Chicago was different as the orchestra rehearsed it all the week before the American premiere – they had a  different energy and I loved them both for different reasons.  Joffrey is such a brilliant company with brilliant  dancers and musicians and Chicago is such a vibrant city – it’s been a bit of a dream come true scoring this ballet  and I feel very lucky I got to experience 2 different companies performing it. Atonement is back in Zurich again this June which is very exciting – it’s such a beautiful city and Ballet Zurich and Philharmonia Zurich are  fantastic! 

You’ve recently completed the score for Battle of Arras, the third in your trilogy of silent film scores for the  Imperial War Museum. Can you share your experience composing for Battle of Arras using a choir and  chamber orchestra? What inspired your musical choices for this combination?

Well, my main aim with the music I composed for all 3 feature length documentary films (Somme, Ancre & Arras) was to help provide a structure (which Is quite loose in all 3 films) and to make the films more engaging  to watch in their entirety whilst matching the images and emotions on screen. Battle of the Somme was  recorded and premiered by the Philharmonia Orchestra and Battle of Ancre I scored for chamber orchestra. I  decided to score Battle of Arras as a choral work as it has more footage of local people and some very moving  scenes, as it shows the aftermath of war, so I felt it would work well with music that enhanced this and the  words and voices help us connect with these images.  

I set English, French and German poetry and text mainly written by Soldiers who were there, or people back  home. I also arranged a few First World War songs as part of the score. When researching Arras, I listened to  recordings of soldiers talking about their experiences of war, and found this incredibly moving tape of a soldier  “Neyland” who was at Arras, talking about the songs they sang and he breaks into song singing “When this  wicked war is over” so I decided to use this for the end credits and wrote an orchestral accompaniment for  him – it’s an incredibly powerful and poignant ending to the film. I plan to tour this with local choirs  performing live with film to bring this film and the music to local audiences.  

How do you balance honoring historical context with bringing a fresh perspective to your music?

Through working on the Somme film, I discovered that I had my own personal connection – my Great, great  Uncle Fred (who I knew – he died when I was 10) was a stretcher bearer and may well be in these films as he  was attached to the division that features in them. I have his diaries and retraced his footsteps across the  battlefields. This close personal connection to the film and the battle and reading his diaries helped give me a  deeper understanding of what it must have been like to be there and helped me to write it from the soldiers’  perspective. I spent as much time researching it as I did writing it, and that preparation to get the right feeling  for what the music should be, helped me to write music that appropriately fits the images and helped audiences to connect with these images 100 years on. I tried to write very sensitively in the scenes of the  wounded and not overpower them as the images are powerful enough themselves. The cameraman Malins  said he wanted to ‘capture the atmosphere of the battlefield and show the spirit of our fighting men in the  most accurate and reliable way’ and I tried to stay true to this in the musical score. 

Let’s talk about composing for different mediums, which you often do! How does your approach to writing  for silent film differ from scoring a narrative feature or a ballet?

My process isn’t that different to how I work when composing film or concert music as I write in a very visual  way and most music I write is about scoring the emotions or telling a story or communicating a feeling through  music, so I always start the same way to try and connect as deeply as possible with that feeling or emotion. I  often write down words to describe that feeling and sometimes draw a picture to help me to think more  deeply. I then go to the piano with manuscript and pencil and compose the music there and then bring it back  to the computer and use samples in Logic to create a demo to play to the director or choreographer, or if it’s a  concert piece or silent film and there is no demo to be created, I work on manuscript and Sibelius scoring it  out. I also love the magic of creating music for film and working as part of a team, but it’s great to alternate  that with silent film or ballet where the music is doing so much more of the work.  

What storytelling techniques do you use in music when there’s no dialogue, such as in silent films or ballet?

I really enjoy painting a picture or telling a story through music and I enjoy the challenge and also the freedom  of doing that when there isn’t dialogue or sound, as the music has to work as a piece of music on its own, whilst also helping tell the story or conveying the emotion of the images on screen or stage. The music can go  on a journey itself and so that helps with the structure.  Recurring themes and motifs help with storytelling  and help you identify with particular characters. You can really play on people’s emotions, as the audience will  feel a certain way because they’ve heard the music before. Melodies also help deepen the emotional  connection with the film or ballet, and because they tend to stay with you, they help you remember that  feeling long after the film or ballet has finished. 

Is there someone you wish to thank, or anything you’d like to add?  

There are a few people along the way who give you that special opportunity. For me the key person was Erich  Sargeant from the British Film Institute – he gave me my first job when I was just out of college, to score 7  short Silent Shakespeare films for a new DVD which I then toured performing live with film.  Also, director Paul  Williams who asked me to score his first feature films, Dr. Toby Haggith from the IWM who recommending me  for scoring the trilogy of First World War feature films (Somme, Ancre and Arras), conductor John Gibbons  who commissioned me to write concert music and conducted my music with his ensembles, and Cathy  Marston for giving me my first ballet commission – a dream job!  

Interview by Nami Melumad

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