As a cross-artform venue and producer, Watershed has explored the creative connections between film and music for many years, culminating in the first annual Filmic season in 2012. One of the leading voices in our work has been composer, producer and artist John Parish. In 2010 Parish conducted a post-screening Q&A about his film score for Xiaolu Guo's 2009 film She, A Chinese; listen to a recording of the event here. As a result of this ongoing relationship and our focus on his lesser known film score work, Parish is releasing Screenplay - an album of his music for film - to coincide with Filmic 2013. In this interview with Mark Cosgrove, Head of Programme at Watershed, Parish discusses the films and scores that have influenced his musical style. He also presented a live performance of Screenplay at St George's, before touring the show around Europe.

"Growing up, film soundtracks had provided some of my favourite pieces of music - Morricone, John Barry of course, but also Wim Mertens, early John Carpenter, Nino Rota, many others. I could tell that all of these influences were buried in my own music, which I thought of as filmic long before I'd ever scored a movie. I love writing music as part of a visual collaboration, whether for film or stage, because you have the opportunity to use space, and stretch time, in ways that wouldn't necessarily work in a stand alone piece of music." John Parish 2013

John Parish is perhaps best known for his acclaimed work with PJ Harvey, up to and including the triumphant 2011 Mercury Prize-winning Let England Shake (Harvey once said "John taught me everything about playing guitar"). He has also worked with the likes of Tracy Chapman, Eels, Giant Sand and many other bands, and has a long career writing and recording music for independent films, including Ursula Meier's second feature Sister, and Patrice Toye's third feature Little Black Spiders.

Related Links:
Filmic 2013 on DShed
Filmic 2012 on DShed

 

Posted on Sat 9 March 2013.

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