Thanks for being with us, Tammy.  I’d love to hear about how you got started in film music.  What inspired you to pursue this career path?

Thank you for having me and for this beautiful community that you’ve created for us. 

In terms of my inspiration of getting into film music – all roads lead to my Grandma! She was the first person that introduced me to the language of music when I was three years old. My Grandma was not just my first piano teacher, but also my biggest life inspirer and just a ‘boss’ female role model. As soon as I was old enough to comprehend it, she would have long conversations with me where we would dissect a piece of music and try to understand what the composer was feeling and thinking at the time they notated that piece. She really believed it was important for me to understand it so that I could emotionally connect with the piece from a deep place when I would play it. I believe these conversations are what sparked my love for composition and how it all comes together.

And then speaking on the ‘boss’ woman aspect. When my Grandma grew up in Sri Lanka, during those times, women weren’t really encouraged to go to college and pursue professional careers. However, it was always my Grandma’s desire to study Film Scoring. Fast forwarding many years and after immigrating to Australia, losing her husband, bringing up her children and grandchildren, she went to study Film Scoring at 65 years of age. I remember going to her graduation ceremony and seeing her amongst the young 20-year-olds, collecting her certificate with the utmost joy. That memory is still so vivid in my mind today.

Sadly she passed away and never got to pursue actually working in film music. However, in a way I feel like I was able to continue her legacy. So every milestone I reach in this composition world, I’m grateful for everything she instilled in me. 

I heard a sample from “For Winter”, your forthcoming documentary for National Geographic, and it is stunning!  Can you elaborate about what went into the scoring process for this project, and where we can catch it?

Thank you so much. When I had my first “For Winter” Spotting Session with the National Geographic team, we talked at length about how we wanted to create a sound world for this film that captured the various facets of the main character the film follows, Alison Criscitiello. 

Not only is Alison a brilliant Ice Core Scientist, she’s also one of the few women pioneering climate science. Moreover, Alison is a professional mountaineer, who has to lead international teams on expeditions, climbing some of the highest mountains in the world to collect ice cores. Then at the same time, she also has this warm and beautiful side to her where she is an incredibly dedicated mother and partner. 

So in a nutshell the sound world I wanted to create was bold science meets beauty. Therefore throughout the score, a lot of the lead instrumentation has edgy, gritty synths, underpinned by a voluptuous cello line. They somehow come together to create this instrument that you can’t quite make out, but represents the complexity and breadth of who Alison is as a person. I still remember when I handed the stems over to my mixing engineer, he was like “oh…there is actually a cello line in here” – as he didn’t notice it in the demo mix!

“For Winter” will be premiering at Banff Film Festival on October 31 and National Geographic will be announcing streaming distribution in late November.  

You are Sri-Lankan-Australian, and I am curious, how have you navigated moving from another country and establishing yourself as a composer in Los Angeles?

Moving to Los Angeles definitely came with both joys and challenges! I remember my mindset when moving here was that I was starting my career again from ground zero. The film music world in the United States is just on a completely different level to Australia, and so I was happy to be humble about it and accept the fact that I would need to take my time to learn the ropes here.

Before I made the move, I booked a trip to Los Angeles to scope out the scene. Funny enough, I knew no-one in the industry in Los Angeles! So my main aim was to just have coffee with composers, to make friends and understand their journey. I remember prior to the trip I sent my showreel and resume to 80 composers, and only 4 responded. I will always be incredibly grateful for those 4 composers who took the time to meet with me and open up about their unique experiences in the industry. The conversations had little gems of wisdom that I still lean on to this day.

Michael A. Levine who was one of Hans Zimmer’s proteges at Remote Control Productions, was one of the 4 composers who responded. Fast forward many months later, Michael gave me the opportunity to interview for a Mentorship position which instigated my move to Los Angeles. I will forever be grateful to Michael for this opportunity, for sharing his wisdom, and for giving me a launching pad to get started over here.

Then after finishing my mentorship program, In November 2019, Ashley Irwin (President of the Society of Composers and Lyricists) had selected me for a Screen Scoring workshop that was run by my Australian PRO, APRA AMCOS. Having this opportunity was a monumental moment, because unknown to me, many of the roads that led to me getting the work I have today can be traced back to this workshop. It’s actually quite mind blowing! At the time of the workshop, I remember just being happy to be there, to learn from people that were vastly more experienced than me, to make great friendships, and to just have fun creating music together.

Then in 2020 COVID hit!! And like for many of us, it kind of felt like everything I was starting to build here rapidly dissolved. However, I was still so grateful for the opportunity to be in Los Angeles, that I just put my head down and found other ways to make life work over here. One aspect I also dove into was nerding out on watching a lot of YouTube videos to try and better understand my plugins, mixing and mastering tools. I also watched countless Composer interviews and spent time studying film scores. I feel like this time of getting deep into this learning experience really set me up for where I am today. I still to this day have a ritual of learning a plug-in per week! 

So in a nutshell, navigating Los Angeles has taught me a few things: be kind to people and make genuine connections without the intention of getting work; in the times where there is no work, just keep learning and mastering what you do; put yourself in new environments like film composing workshops where you can get inspiration through collaboration!

From what I’ve heard, your compositions are quite genre-defying and versatile.  What do you feel is the unique DNA/ soundscape that your compositions carry?  What do you think contributes most to your own original style?

In all honesty, my music career has been a little random, or for better words, a tapestry of experiences. While my roots were in classical music as a pianist, and playing in orchestras as a violinist, in my 20’s I delved into writing, producing and recording topline vocals for Trance and House DJ’s. That experience spun into me establishing a retro-electronic band which I released a number of records with. Therefore I feel like my compositions have this unique tonal character that mesh together both of these worlds. I call it organica x electronica!

I know you recently started your own Composing House, Veirtu. What sparks your passion for mentoring young and emerging composers through Veirtu?

As we discussed earlier on, I honestly wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for the composers, mentors and life inspirers who have taken the time to share their gems of wisdom and experiences with me. They are literally the pillars that I stand on today. So when I established Veirtu Composing House, I really wanted to be able to pay the generosity forward and to create an environment where film composing students and emerging composers could come in for short periods of time and get exposed to the working life of a composer.

I’ve also been a piano and vocal teacher since I was 17 years old. I just love the whole experience of seeing people younger than me learn to master music, nurture a deep love for it, and to grow and thrive in what they do. So, mentoring is just something that feels like a natural extension of who I am and what brings me true joy. 

Music has great power- we all connect with music because it awakes something inside of us.  Do you believe music is an important vehicle for social change?  How do you incorporate this into your work?

I will never forget the moment as a young kid when I watched Quincy Jones on the TV conducting “We Are The World”. My parents said my eyes were glued to the TV and I was absolutely mesmerized by it. They actually recorded it on VHS so that I could replay it over and over again. 

My little self was just so in awe of how Quincy brought together all of these incredible musicians, and they were singing about something that was really important – world poverty.

Also, from a young age, my Grandma and parents always instilled the importance of harnessing our own personal gifts to play our small part in making a difference in our community. From a young age, we would play music in retirement homes and shelters for the homeless. And then in my 20’s I traveled to countries like Cambodia to teach music to kids who came from families who never had the resources to access instruments or learn music. The music program was also developed to help them learn math, english and other school subjects. Just seeing how music would uplift all of these people, educate, and inspire, really made me realize that music was something that was beyond ‘myself’ and that it can be a powerful tool for change.

Since my teenage years, I also volunteered and then went on to work in a professional capacity with organizations who help survivors of modern slavery. It has always been so crazy to me that in our modern world, you can still buy a life for a price and that they have to endure such harrowing injustices.

I’ve always had a desire where I could bring together what I love (music), and connect it to raising awareness about modern slavery. This is what led me to start xPropelr, an organization with a mission to inspire creatives to fight the cycle of injustice.

In June 2024, we released our first project, “Dreaming Freedom”, a record and art installation which has become an educational tool to help raise awareness that modern slavery still exists today (impacting 50 million people in the world), and has helped to raise funds for our impact partner, International Justice Mission who work directly in the rescue, recovery and protection or people trapped in modern slavery.

It was also pretty overwhelming that we had 200 music collaborators from 30 countries that came on board to record “Dreaming Freedom”. Many of them like Kris Bowers, Pedro Eustache, Alex Isley, Brandee Younger, MB Gordy (that are known to our film composer community) had no idea who I or xPropelr was prior to embarking on this journey with us. It just goes to show that our global music community is filled with people who have incredible hearts and believe that music can be a powerful tool for social change.

Interview by Connor Cook

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