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The Panel
The Screened Music Panel is a diverse collection of industry professionals at the forefront of the British film and television music industry. Each month, they audition and nominate composers to join the Screened Music Network.
Current Panel Members
Guest Panellist: David Lowe
David Lowe is a British composer, focusing primarily on music for television and radio. His work includes all of the themes for BBC News, across television and radio.
Other British programmes include The One Show, Panorama, Ray Mears, Jeremy Clarkson, Wildlife on One, The Really Wild Show, Grand Designs on Channel 4 and the Five motoring programme 5th Gear. He has also created themes for the Al Arabiya Channel in Dubai, NDTV in India and TV2 in Norway.
In 1997, Lowe released his debut album Dreamcatcher. He performed a live mix that year at the first Thames River Festival, which accompanied a record breaking tightrope walk across the river.
His single "Would You...?" under the name Touch and Go was a top 3 hit in the UK in 1998 and a hit in the rest of Europe in early 1999. The album I've Noticed You Around spawned more hit singles in Eastern Europe and Russia. "Straight...to Number One" was chosen by Apple to launch the iTunes site in the USA, where every track on the album has been used in films, television and/or commercials.
Two CD's of Lowe's music have been released by the BBC. "BBC World The Music" is a compilation of some of Lowe's work for BBC World, made available after significant demand from viewers. "Wild Carribbean" features the best of Lowe's music from the BBC2 series of the same name, and remixes of his Touch and Go tracks "So Hot" and "Life's A Beach".
Through his website, Lowe has released compilations of some of his television soundtracks. "TV Chill" is a mix from a variety of different programmes, whilst "Grand Designs" features a full length arrangement of the main theme, and other music from the Channel 4 series. Both were produced after interest from viewers, including a request from one to have the Grand Designs music played at her wedding. Lowe also co-produced an album for poet Roger McGough. Between excerpts of McGough's live performance, he set some of the poetry to music.
Lowe was invited by the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters to compose the theme for the 50th Ivor Novello Awards ceremony in 2005. In 2006 he was commissioned to write the music for the BAFTA Film and Television Awards and for the BBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics.
He has performed at several WOMAD festivals worldwide. In 2004, he was commissioned by WOMAD to provide a music soundscape for The Tropical Biome at the Eden Project, which was performed at WOMAD Reading in 2005. Reinforced with several new songs, the material has been reworked to form his second Dreamcatcher album, "What...is In Between?", released on Oval Records in October 2006. Featured vocalists are poet and novelist Benjamin Zephaniah and Japanese artist and composer Mieko Shimizu, while Lowe himself sings on "Still The Greatest."
David Lowe is a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters. in 2005 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Staffordshire University.
Current Panel
Rodney Newton, Composer / Music Consultant London Film School
Composer Rodney Newton has been Music Consultant to the London Film School for 18 years and also works as an arranger, music journalist, reviewer, lecturer, music competition adjudicator and General Editor of a music publishing company.
Rodney studied at the Birmingham School of Music (now the Birmingham Conservatoire), then joined the New BBC Orchestra in Bristol as a percussionist, during which time he wrote music for the BBC World Service. He went on to become principal timpanist of the Sadler's Wells Opera (now the ENO). In the 1970s he formed his own ensemble, the St Martin's Lane Ensemble. View Rodney's full profile.
Sue Sellick, Acquisitions Manager, BBC Music
Sue has worked within BBC Worldwide Ltd for over ten years focusing primarily within Music Publishing. Amongst many areas of expertise, Sue works closely with Composers, alongside TV/Radio Producers in the delivery of specially composed music, in particular during the crucial pitching process.
Sue is also on hand to offer financial management towards production music budgets and if required, helps with the securing of orchestras, conductors, engineers, copyists and recording studios - in fact whatever is needed. Sue has over the years worked many times with the BBC Orchestras in particular the BBC Concert Orchestra, helping to create lavish orchestral deliveries in such genres as BBC Docu-Dramas and Natural History programmes. Other genres which Sue covers closely are BBC Idents, Science & Medicine, History, Sport, News, Radio Jingles and Independent Productions to name but a few.
As well as supporting the creation and exploitation of new and exciting compositions for new BBC programmes, Sue also offers assistance to composers helping wherever possible develop careers within this area of music. Sue has worked with many composers over the years, championing those who are beginning their careers to those composers who have established themselves as heavyweights in this highly competitive market.
Elizabeth Parker, Composer
Elizabeth is one of Britain's best-known composers of music for television. She has written for well over 1,600 television and radio productions and is a former member of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop where she worked for 18 years until its closure in 1996.
She has worked on numerous prize-winning programmes for the BBC Natural History Unit including The Human Body, the highly successful Weird Nature and David Attenborough's block-buster series The Living Planet. View Elizabeth's full profile.
Mark has been writing music for television since 1985. His credits include Flesh and Blood, The Adventure Series, Shakespeare's Wars of the Roses and the BBC's late lamented soap Eldorado. He has also written for commercials, music libraries, live events and video. Mark is a director of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters, and also British Music Rights, an organisation that lobbies government and others on copyright issues.
Before becoming a composer Mark had a brief spell as a sports journalist, after which he joined Dick James Music Studios as a sound engineer, working with artists including Haircut 100, Modern Romance, Psychic TV, Patti Palladin, and the film director Derek Jarman.
In 1994 he began writing and arranging children's songs for English language courses and has since produced over 1,000. He continues to work on his own material and recently co-wrote a song for a Finnish feature film. He has also produced for radio, been a voiceover artist, scriptwriter and recently ... albeit briefly ... an actor.
Paul Farrer, Composer
Paul is an award winning and versatile composer who is as happy writing game show themes as he is scoring documentary underscores and major film scores. Recent credits include BBC1's Car Wars, ITV's The Jerry Springer Show and some music for the Tony Scott Film Domino staring Keira Kightley. Read more about Paul and listen to his music.
Simon Lambros, Composer
Simon's work as a Film and TV composer has encompassed a wide variety of genres. In the field of Animation he is represented by films such as 'Blindscape' for which he wrote (and conducted) the music, as well as being the sound editor/designer and supervising Dubbing Mixer. View Simon's full profile.
Sarah Liversedge, Managing Director, BDi Music Limited
Sarah has 16 years of experience working in media. Before setting up BDi Music, she was Deputy Head of Music Publishing at BBC WW Music, the commercial arm of the BBC. In this role, Sarah played a major part in developing & expanding what became a multimillion pound business and one of the leading media music publishing companies in the UK, if not the World.
Sarah's past work experience includes Programme Liasion Executive for BBC Music, Floor Manager for TV - Children & Entertainment programmes & Researcher for BBC TV & Independent TV. Her experience in media has provided strong relations with productions companies, producers, directors and composers.
Sarah is a member of the PRS media committee and she is also on the board of directors for the arts organisation led by artists with learning disabilities, Heart n Soul.
David Burnand, Composer / Principal Lecturer Royal College of Music
David Burnand is Head of Music Technology, Head of the Centre for Screen Music Studies and a Principal Lecturer at the Royal College of Music. He composes electroacoustic and film scores, including music and sound design for: Hoi Polloi (BBC 1990), Acumen (C4 1991), Smart Alek (BFI 1993), Là Bas (BFI 1994), Gallivant (BFI/C4 1996), This Filthy Earth (FilmFour 2001). David is currently preparing the soundtrack album for This Filthy Earth.
Recent publications include:
- 'The Articulation of National Identity Through Film Music', National Identities, 1/1, 1999.
- Six biographies of British film composers and articles on 'Incidental Music for TV' and 'MIDI', The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2001.
- 'Reasons Why Film Music is Held in Low Regard: a British Perspective', Brio, 39/1, 2002.
- The main music articles and several composer biographies in The Encyclopedia of British Film, ed. B. McFarlane, Methuen/BFI, 2003 (repr. 2004, 2006).
- 'Tarkovsky's Gift', Soundscape, eds L. Sider, D. Freeman & J. Sider, Wallflower Press, 2003.
- With Miguel Mera, 'Fast and Cheap? The Film Music of John Carpenter', The Cinema of John Carpenter, eds I. Conrich & D. Woods, Wallflower press, 2004.
- 'Mind the Gap', dealing with the challenges of integrating composition and composition for screen studies, in FourFour, issue 13, March 2006.
- 'Scoring This Filthy Earth', European Film Music, eds M. Mera & D. Burnand, Ashgate, 2006.
Lol Hammond, Music supervisor Vertigo Films
Lol Hammond is music supervisor at Vertigo Films and a successful international DJ and composer. Obsessed with film from an early age, he has worked for Vertigo for the past five years and supervised music on a number of feature films including 'The Outlaw', 'London to Brighton', 'Southwest 9', critically acclaimed Brit flick, 'Football Factory', Danish movie 'Pusher 2' and 'It's All Gone Pete Tong'.
Lol has also had music featured in many movies including 'The World is Not Enough' (for which he scored the trailer), 'Southwest 9' (which also features a cameo appearance by the man himself, as messianic DJ whipping the Brixton crowds into a frenzy), 'Halloween', 'Football Factory', 'It's All Gone Pete Tong'. 2006 sees Lol working on more film projects than ever with four movies in pipeline - "Heroes and Villains" a romantic comedy set in London featuring a score by Roger Eno and tracks by The Charlatans, Siobhan Fahey, Alucidnation and Lol himself. "Dirty Sanchez" a feature length movie with the brilliant 4 Welsh hell raisers from MTV/Channel 4, "Filth" a movie adaptation of the classic Irvine Welsh novel, and finally "Was", a psychological thriller set in New York. Lol's latest release was the 'Piano Lessons EP', which followed the ambient classic 'All This Is Bliss' (both on Big Chill Recordings).