Composing for TV Series

SoundTrack_Cologne 20: Composing for TV - Series

Four composers from some of the most successful series on television and streaming services will speak during the Composing for TV Series Day at SoundTrack_Cologne, about how they conquered the TV industry with their music.

Carlos Rafael Rivera, two-time Emmy Award winner and Grammy Award winner (Queen's Gambit and Godless), Nami Melumad, the first woman in charge of scoring the Star Trek franchise (Strange New World and Prodigy), Florian Tessloff, creator of the music for Bonn: Old Friends, New Enemies (WDR's hit German spy series), and Natalie Holt, two-time Emmy Award nominee for Marvel Studios' Loki and Obi-Wan Kenobi, will be the panelists of the workshops-discussions that will take place on Friday 23 June.

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Composing for TV Series
Friday 23 June 2023 · Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, Auditorium

10:30 – 11:30
Carlos Rafael Rivera
Queen's Gambit · Godless
Workshop - Discussion

12:00 – 13:00
Nami Melumad
Star Trek: Strange New World · Star Trek: Prodigy
Workshop - Discussion

14:30 – 15:30
Florian Tessloff
Bonn: Old Friends, New Enemies (Bonn: Alte Freunde, neue Feinde) · The Baader Meinhof Complex
Workshop - Discussion

16:00 – 17:00
Natalie Holt
Loki  · Obi-Wan Kenobi
Workshop - Discussion

Carlos Rafael Rivera

Queen’s Gambit · Godless
Workshop - Discussion

Friday 21 June 2023 · 10:30 – 11:30

Carlos Rafael Rivera’s career has spanned several genres of the music industry. Having scored one of the most viewed Netflix series of all time, The Queen’s Gambit, Rivera received his second Primetime Emmy Award and first Grammy Award while having received the Society of Composers and Lyricists (SCL), as well as the Hollywood Music in Media (HMMA), and two International Film Critics Association (IFMCA) Awards.

His work for film and TV also includes scores for Netflix’s Godless, for which he received a Primetime Emmy, Universal Pictures’ A Walk Among the Tombstones, as well as Just Beyond for Disney +, and the upcoming La Reina del Sur 3, for Telemundo.

As a guitarist, he has performed onstage as the opening act for The Who at the Hollywood Bowl; recorded studio sessions for Island/Def Jam, and Universal Records; and had songs on feature soundtracks (Crash, Dragonfly), as well as Netflix’s Firefly Lane. His work for Visual Media and the Performing Arts can be heard in concert halls and at festivals around the world, being featured by Arturo Sandoval, the Cincinnati Pops, Colin Currie, Chanticleer, Cavatina Duo, the Chicago Sinfonietta, the American Composers Orchestra, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, the Pro Musica Mundi Choir, and the Beethoven Academy Orchestra.

He is a voting member of the Television Academy (Emmy) and the Recording Academy (Grammy) and a board member of the Society of Composers and Lyricists (SCL).

Nami Melumad

Star Trek: Strange New World · Star Trek: Prodigy
Workshop - Discussion

Friday 21 June 2023 · 12:00 – 13:00

Nami Melumad’s scoring credits exceed 140 projects in a wide variety of genres. The Israeli-Dutch composer, based in Los Angeles, California, has scored, among others, Marvel’s Thor: Love & Thunder (which she co-scored with Michael Giacchino), Netflix’s The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window, and the Paramount+ Series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds as well as Star Trek: Prodigy, making her the first female composer for the Star Trek franchise. She also scored EA's VR video game Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, Disney's Far from the Tree, and the HBO Max comedy An American Pickle.

Nominated for Breakthrough Composer of the Year (2020) by the International Film Music Critics Association, Melumad won the BMI award for the Oscar-winning documentary short, Colette. She has been honored with the Hollywood Music in Media Awards for her score for Passage (2018), and with the Best Score for a Short at Fimucite for Luminarias in 2017 (out of 908 score entries).

Malumad had recorded music at the Fox Newman Scoring Stage, Warner Brothers Eastwood Scoring Stage, Abbey Road Studios, East-West Studios and Capitol Records. Her work has been performed by the Hollywood Chamber Orchestra, Haifa Symphony Orchestra, The Israel Sinfonietta Beer Sheva and Helix Collective Ensemble.

The composer, who also plays piano, flute, guitars, uke, and some clarinet, serves as a board member of the Alliance for Women Film Composers.

Florian Tessloff

Bonn: Old Friends, New Enemies (Bonn: Alte Freunde, neue Feinde) · The Baader Meinhof Complex
Workshop - Discussion

Friday 21 June 2023 · 14:30 – 15:30 

Florian Tessloff is a German composer and producer based in Hamburg. His multi-genre compositions include soundtracks for renowned films such as Uli Edel’s terrorist drama The Baader Meinhof Complex, Max Zähle’s debut drama Raju, Kerstin Ahlrich’s ‘80s black comedy Night Ride and Daphne Charizani’s war drama Sisters Apart.

Tessloff also compose extensively for TV. Currently, he es working on the 1950’s post WWII spy thriller Bonn: Old Friends, New Enemies, for German broadcaster WDR/ARD, directed by Claudia Garde.

Other TV work includes, Matti Geschonneck’s German Television Award-winning drama The End of a Night, period drama Ottilie von Faber-Castell by Claudia Garde (ZDF) as well as Züli Aladag’s acclaimed two-part terror drama Brüder (ARD). Most recently, he composed the scores for the miniseries Unbroken (ZDFneo), and co-scored Oliver Rihs’s high end drama series Blackout.

Regularly working out of Los Angeles, Tessloff has been collaborating with Oscar-nominated film composers Mark Isham and David Newman on award-winning productions.

Tessloff’s compositional voice has been shaped by his education in jazz, classical and electronic music at the Hamburg Conservatory and Berklee College of Music, Boston. He was awarded the German Music Authors’ Prize in the category “Composition Audiovisual Media” in 2016.

Natalie Holt

Loki  · Obi-Wan Kenobi
Workshop - Discussion

Friday 21 June 2023 · 16:00 – 17:00

Natalie Holt is a multi-award-winning British composer, known equally for large orchestral arrangements and intimate, textural and at times experimental electro-acoustic compositions. Enriched by her experience as a classically trained violinist, Holt’s work exists in the liminal space between orchestral, electronic and contemporary. Holt scored Marvel Studios’ acclaimed series Loki, earning her nominations for two Emmy Awards, as well as a BAFTA, SCL Award, and the World Soundtrack Awards for “Television Composer of the Year”.

In 2022, she continued her scoring streak with the Series Obi-Wan Kenobi. Holt’s other significant work includes Saul Dibb’s World War I feature Journey's End, co-composed with Academy Award-winner Hildur Guðnadóttir, with whom she received the Best International Score Award at the Beijing International Film Festival in 2018. Her work with Martin Phipps on the HBO Max Emmy Award-nominated series The Honourable Woman won the 2015 Ivor Novello award and garnered a BAFTA nomination for Best Original Music.

Holt trained in composition at the National Film and Television School in London and studied violin at the Royal Academy of Music. Holt’s distinction in her field was recognized by being made an Associate of the Royal Academy in 2017. As a professional musician she has perform at the London Olympics, record with artists like George Michael and Ellie Goulding and with the London Metropolitan Orchestra on countless films, as well as play with performers like Lady Gaga, Ed Sheeran and Andrea Boccelli.

Holt alternates between London and Los Angeles.