Local soundtrack composer Alice Trueman hoists her colours to the mast once more…
In this new feature we set out to "meet our members" and it is a great pleasure to start with Alice Trueman soundtrack composer.
Alice Trueman is an award-winning, highly versatile soundtrack composer whose music has been broadcast on the BBC, Channel 5 and around the world as far as Japan, but who has her roots locally in the Black Country.
She is about to write an original score for Mark Pressdee’s very funny short Titanic Love. The film currently features Creative Commons music which must be replaced so that the film can be broadcast and sold online. Her music must rise to the challenge of evoking the same emotions, whilst binding the whole film together in a cohesive, Titanic-spoofing, whole!
Filmmakers often use library music, and Alice has a growing number of tracks in libraries such as Synctracks. However, there are still many occasions when a film needs a composer’s personal touch, bringing their own style and creativity to the score. Even when pop songs form much of the score, as was the case in Michael Baig Clifford’s excellent rom-com feature Turbulence (2011), a real-life soundtrack composer (Alice again!) was needed to bring all the disparate musical strands together.
She has her own inimitable style and particularly enjoys combining classical instruments and electronic sounds in eerie and emotional soundscapes, as she did in her very successful score for the BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Solaris (2007), for which Alice received plaudits in The Times.
She was one of the four winners in Channel 4's Ideas factory Soundtrack Talent Search in 2004 and in May 2005 she was picked as one of the "hottest young creatives" in the Midlands by Channel 4. But it didn’t stop in the Midlands ‒ in 2006 she reached the final of BBC New Talent's national hunt to find new TV composers and in 2012 she was one of five finalists in the BBC's Baroque Remixed competition, in which the BBC Concert Orchestra played her evocative and sensuous reinterpretation of Purcell’s Rondeau.
A classically-trained violinist, Alice began playing and writing tunes at the age of seven. As a child the confines of the string-quartet were always a little too narrow for her, as she longed to play in a jazz band or pop group too. Now, with a Masters with distinction in Composition and Song-Writing, she uses her analytical skills to create faithful and accurate pastiches of music from round the globe, from traditional Chinese music, to classical Indian, to popular styles such as Ska and Jazz. She also loves composing with large orchestral forces and recreating classical music styles, time-travelling from Medieval times to the present day.
Alice cut her soundtrack teeth at the highly supportive Light-House Media Centre, scoring a host of short films and promo videos. These included folk-music scores using live instruments for Knock Knock (2004), directed by Roy Hocking, and PhiZog (2006), a dark, quirky animation directed by Neil Weber for SWM Digital Shorts, and a jazz score for Justin Edgar’s You’re an Embarrassment (2004).
Currently, she’s looking to score your feature films, TV programmes and video games! But right now, it’s back aboard the good ship Titanic…
You can listen to Alice’s latest audio showreel
And you can find more music and video clips, including Solaris and PhiZog,
or visit her website
http://www.alicetrueman.co.uk
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