In Episode 10, director Olly Blackburn and composer Drew Schnurr travel to Prague, Czech Republic, to discuss creative process, collaboration, and the fusion of music and media with composers Aleš Březina, Beata Hlavenková, and Pavel Rido.

Aleš Březina has composed music for more than 20 films and was four times nominated for the Czech Lion Award (Up and Down, I Served The King Of England, Honeymoon, Milada) once for the Czech Film Critics Award (Honeymoon), and his music for Hřebejk’s film Kawasaki’s Rose earned him a nomination for European Film Composer Award 2010. His soundtracks were published by Sony Bonton Music and Milan Records in Paris. He composed music for Olga Sommerová’s documentary films Věra ’68 about Czech famous gymnast Věra Čáslavská and The Magic Voice of a Rebel about the famous Czech singer and dissident Marta Kubišová.

Březina also writes music for Operas and Theatre, and he has won two Alfréd Radok´s Awards (the most prominent Czech theatre awards) for the best music and was nominated for many more for his two chamber operas and other works for music theatre. His concert music has been performed by numerous symphonic orchestras across the world. He has been the Director of the Bohuslav Martinů Institute in Prague since 1994 and also has an extensive career as a recognized musicologist.

Beata Hlavenková is a pianist, composer, singer, arranger, and producer. She published her own album Sně for which she won the Anděl Award in the Artist of the Year 2019 category, and the 2021 album Žijutě, which features her as a lyricist. 

In the years 2006 – 2013 she led her jazz trio, and after the release of the award-winning album Theodoros in 2013 she most often plays solo in the Czech Republic and abroad. Very original and long-term projects were created in collaboration with Lenka Dusilová; both the Eternal Seekers project, in which she worked with Clarinet Factory, and two albums with the Baromantika project. 

For the last two years, she has been performing with the Kapela Snů, which consists of her key musical partners mainly from her last two albums – Oskar Török and Patrick Karpentski. In August 2021, her soundtrack to the successful Czech film Zátopek was released. After the musical accompaniment of the two-part television film Dukla 61, this is the second collaboration with director David Ondříček.

Pavel Rido is a producer and sound engineer, highly experienced in many genres of music from electronic to orchestral. He studied sound engineering at SAE in Sydney, Australia, and has worked on many movie soundtracks and music recordings, including Red Tails for George Lucas, recordings by Englebert Humperdinck, and the soundtrack for the Westworld TV series. He has also released numerous dance music albums as the artist known as “Rido” on Goldie’s legendary Metalheadz label and as part of the Black Sun Collective.

Olly Blackburn is an award­-winning film director and screenwriter. He trained as a historian and after spending time as a journalist and copywriter found himself working in feature films, television, and commercials.

His films have played at major festivals including Telluride, Sundance, Edinburgh, Austin, and London. In TV drama Olly’s work ranges from tough contemporary thrillers like Amazon’s The Widow and StartUp, to the human drama of Jack Thorne’s Glue and period pieces like Victoria and Andrew Davies’ adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sanditon.

Drew Schnurr is a composer, performer, and cross-disciplinary artistic researcher.

As a composer for media, Drew has produced music and sonic branding for numerous world brands and media conglomerates. He is also an active concert composer and sound artist with a diverse range of international commissions and exhibits. 

Drew is an Assistant Professor of Composition and Media at the University of North Texas where he leads the media composition program and is the founder and director of the Division of Composition Studies Collaboration HUB initiative.

 MusikMotion is a collaboration between MusikMotioin Labs and the University of North Texas College of Music showcasing the intersection of music and the moving image. 

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