Jocelyn Pook - film and television composer:

Jocelyn Pook was born in Solihull and received her formal musical education in London at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. As a viola player she has performed with artists such as The Communards and Massive Attack, and formed the quartet known as "Electra Strings" with the Australian violinist Sonia Slany and others, which later became known as "Brilliant Strings". Her career as a composer started out in theatres and concert halls until the mid-1990s with a move towards the cinema, firstly with a documentary film called "Blight" and then more prominently with the score to Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" in 1999. The film contains an eclectic collection of music, grounded by some suitably mysterious underscore by Pook, most especially the Masked Ball sequence with its backwards samples. This film seems to have helped to kick-start a slowly accelerating career for Jocelyn Pook in film music and the composer has since gone on to score "The Merchant of Venice", Brick Lane and "Heidi".

Jocelyn Pook's official web-site is at www.jocelynpook.com.

Films by Jocelyn Pook:

• Blight - documentary film about objections to the construction of a motorway
• Eyes Wide Shut - the soundtrack to this Stanley Kubrick film features some existing classical music including the 2nd Waltz from Shostakovich's Jazz Suite, and a score from Pook
• Gangs of New York - the track "Dionysus" from Martin Scorsese's multi-faceted soundtrack
• The Mechant of Venice - a British made film with an impressive cast list led by Al Pacino as Shylock, and an equally impressive score by Pook
• Heidi
• Caotica Ana
• Brick Lane - the music sounds particularly authentic for this film about a Bangaldeshi woman for whom an arranged marriage in London means leaving her family and roots behind

Recommendations:

Here is a great selection of film scores from Jocelyn Pook. For "Eyes Wide Shut" make sure you get the album containing the score tracks rather than the album with the Stanley Kubrick source music. We have also include a couple of stand-alone albums of Pook's music - "Flood" and "Untold Things".

• Brick Lane - only on Amazon.co.uk currently, but there is this version on Amazon.com
• The Merchant of Venice - Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
• Eyes Wide Shut - Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
• Flood - Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
• Untold Things - Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk