Rolfe Kent was born in the UK but now lives and works in Los Angeles. He started out in film scoring with a series of soft porn films for Playboy video called "Inside Out", but he soon progressed on to other things with a stream of low budget films and shorts, and even getting a producer credit for "Mercy" in 1995. He steadily worked up the ranks of bigger and bigger movies, gaining credibility on the way with song-credits on the movies "Fight Club" and "Zoolander", before landing movies such as "Legally Blonde". He kept up the association with "Legally Blonde 2" while also scoring a number of A-grade movies including "Kate and Leopold", "About Schmidt", "Freaky Friday" and the wine-tasting movie "Sideways".
Rolf Kent's style is quite varied having had some contact with a number of genres, but he seems to have specialised in Gentle Romantic Comedies or Odd-Ball Comedies with a quirky element, inviting comparisons with composers like Carter Burwell and Alexandre Desplat. The "Sideways" score has something of an old-world jazz vibe to it and the composer also played guitar and melodica on the soundtrack. Meanwhile in television, the Dark Comedy style for "Dexter" is captured using an usual set of instruments. Kent has frequently used a range of world instruments in his scores, which adds to the quirkiness factor rather than suggesting exotic locations. The Composer's official website is at www.rolfekent.com where you can sample many tracks from his film scores and even download free sheet music from "Sideways".
Rolfe Kent has scored a steady stream of movies this past few years, with many of these also having soundtrack releases. The soundtrack for "Mr. Popper's Penguins" (a comedy starring Jim Carrey) for example is available from these links - Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk, while the excellent score for "Downsizing" is available at - Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.
There are a number of Rolfe Kent soundtracks available on CD, and here is a small selection of those:
Here are some CD covers signed by Rolfe Kent. Our thanks to Petr Kocanda for permission to use his collection of autographed CDs. Click on any thumbnail below to see the image full size in a separate window.
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