Month: May 2012

Ciaran Hope – a.k.a. Ciaran Dóchas is our music supervisor for Forces of Nature.

Ciaran Hope – Music Composer and Supervisor

I want to take this opportunity to welcome an extremely talented and loyal friend, Ciaran Hope, to our team. Please take an opportunity to read about this man’s accomplishments and life.

Since first dipping his toes into the film mecca of Hollywood in the late 90’s, Irish composer Ciaran has diligently spent his time working for prestigious film and production companies, projects, and organizations. To this day, his original pieces are shaped from a rigorous, distinguished artistic training and strong affinity with the music.

As a former Fulbright Scholar in film music, Ciaran has been the recipient of awards such as the IMRO prize at the RTE Musician of the Future, the International Solstice Composition Prize, a National Training Commission for Film and Television Bursary, an Arts Council of Ireland Postgraduate Award and his music was a finalist at the International Clarinet Association Composition Contest and the International Song for Peace Contest, while his work on the Hollywood feature film The Insider was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.

Ciaran has been commissioned to create classical pieces for prestigious cultural groups and organizations such as the Czech Clarinet Quartet and the Latvian Ministry of Arts and Culture and the Solstice Arts Centre in Navan, where his new work will be the signature tune for the centre and will be played before performances, at launches, exhibition openings and other publicity events. His recent commission for children’s string orchestra, titled “A Spring Morning” premiered on the main concert stage at Euro Disney and the Church of Sainte-Merri in Paris during the summer of 2011 and the reaction from the performers, parents and audience was phenomenal.

Since being awarded an Arts Council of Ireland Project Bursary Award to write a new violin concerto for violinist Cora Venus Lunny, violinist and composer have been collaborating closely on the new concerto. Ciaran has also undertaken residencies at the Tyrone Guthrie Artist’s retreat in Co. Monaghan and the Cill Rialaig Artist Retreat in remote Co. Kerry to work on the concerto, with the kind support of a 2011 Tyrone Guthrie Centre regional Bursary Award and a 2012 Cill Rialaig Residency Award.

Internationally, Ciaran’s music has been performed at showcases such as the Electro-acoustic music Festival of Cadiz, the Symposium of Brazilian Computer Music and the Logan Chamber Music Series in the famed Chautauqua Institute, New York. This year, his music was selected for performance at the second Beijing Irish Modern Music Festival of Beijing on March 18th 2012. He has also contributed music towards films that have been featured at over 40 film festivals around the world and have enjoyed commercial success in the U.S. entertainment industry as a composer for major entertainment companies, including Walt Disney, Trimark Pictures, Alcon Entertainment, TomandAndy, and Alliance Atlantis.

Commercially, his 2006 album, Etude in Film Score, was so successful that it made the top 40 sales at CDBaby.com in its first month. A track from the album, “Childhood Ends,” was selected for inclusion on an exclusive, limited release CDBaby promotional CD due to the album’s success.

Ciaran has also participated in BMI’s prestigious Conducting Workshop, where an elite group of 8 composers out of their 400,000 membership are chosen to spend two weeks working intensely with a conductor and live musicians at the musicians union in Los Angeles. His ‘classmates’ included World Soundtrack Award Winning and Golden Globe nominated composer Abel Korzeniowski, BMI Award winner Juan Carlos Rodriguez and Emmy nominated Annie winning composer Guy Moon.

As a speaker, Ciaran have given master classes on composing for film at a variety of venues including Trinity College Dublin, the Dundalk Institute of Technology, the University of Colorado at Denver and the Solstice Arts Centre in Navan. In December 2010, at the behest of the Provost Dr. John Hegarty, he organized a panel discussion that took place in the Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin which focused on music placement and scoring in film and TV and gave master classes on film composition to Trinity postgraduate and undergraduate music students. The panel sold out in 3 days.

With a Masters degree in audio acoustics and a keen interest in all things audio, Ciaran has also published several research papers in audio acoustics and is currently exploring a new research project into the sonic stimulation of cell cultures at the world famous Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

Having completed writing and recording string arrangements for producer Noel Hogan of The Cranberries, his new score to the new Hollywood feature film Truth About Kerry starring Stana Katic(ABC’s CASTLE) is being very well received. It has just been announced that Ciaran was awarded the position of Composer in Residence for 2013 in the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, where he will work on a new opera on the life of Robert Emmet.

2 days left in the campaign!!!

a documentary produced and directed by Hayden de M. Yates
I am personally writing you on behalf of myself and the rest of the crew and supporters who have so far generously contributed to the making of this intriguing biopic of this large scale sculptor artist from Iceland, Jóhann Eyfells. I’ve known Jóhann for 6+ years now, and it only became apparent to me that this friendship would turn into a creative collaboration,  when I began to see the potential impact his work and profound ideas would have both in the art world and our everyday thinking.
Help us make this film a reality and contribute as much as you can. Contributions can be made on IndieGogo, a safe and secure way where all of the pledged funds will go directly toward the making of the film. Those of you who wish to contribute will have their name listed in the credits, and with a contribution of $1500 or more will receive “Associate Producer” credit on the film.
We have just one more bit of shooting to do in Iceland, which would serve as both the backdrop and fountainhead for this compelling story about a man, who began his young life as boxing champion as well as an architect in his home country, moved away to America to become a world class large scale sculptor, with huge exhibits all over the globe, including the world renowned Venice Biennale and 1972 Munich Olympics. It is also a story of love between him and his wife of almost 60 years, Kristin Eyfells, who was herself an artist sculptor of great magnitude and depth.

We have only 2 days left in the fundraising campaign, and we are  so very close in reaching our goal of $23,000. So far, with the help from generous art lovers, we have raised $18,000+, and we need just under $5,000 to reach our goal.

If you love art and believe that artist like Jóhann are invaluable to us and the world, then please join us in making this film just by sharing this site with your friends on Facebook and Twitter or by simply pledging your support to the following site:

http://igg.me/p/74318?a=473813

Thank you!

Family and Iceland comes to Fredericksburg

This weekend Jóhann Eyfells’ family came to lend a hand to what seem at first an impossible task, to remove the undergrowth from around all of Johann’s large sculptures on the studio grounds in Fredericksburg. For three days, in over 90 degree weather, Dóra and Anna Kristin diligently and with great spirit systematically removed all of the unwanted growth from every sculpture. Dóra flew in to Texas directly from Reykjavik, while Anna Kristin made the journey from New York city where she currently resides with her filmmaker husband and works as an architect, only to spend 4 days with Jóhann and visit with him. After it was all said and done, the grounds looked immaculate, making the Johann’s large body of work more prominent and eminent. See for yourselves…