Rhett Brewer
- Composer
- Music Department
Film found Rhett Brewer through an uncanny set of circumstances. When
BBC presenter Charlie Gillett was given a CD of Brewer's music, he
played it on his national UK show for a period of six weeks and
introduced his music to director Rene Lezard, amongst others.
Brewer's musical landscape evolves from contradictions; evocative composition spanning contemporary classical frameworks and music from many cultures and millennia. As well as a composer, Brewer is a recognised ethnomusicologist, and his palette is unashamedly global with Byzantine hymns, Arabic chants, Medieval fugues and French chanson providing frames for reference.
Unusually, Brewer uses the human voice as an instrument, himself a Vocalist as well as Composer, performing his work alongside ensembles and orchestras.
Rhett Brewer was born in the often tense and cosmopolitan world of New York in 1970, surrounded by the sounds of the street. In a recent interview Brewer described how: "Music of the Middle East merged with Russian folk songs. Samba played along side Bossa Nova. The wail of the Saxophone rose above the more urgent tones of an emerging Rap scene. There was an extreme global sound-scape compressed into a hectic and claustrophobic space. Urban life can often be harsh; in response, my passion has been about creating a musical space in which to reflect."
On the compositional side, Brewer might be compared to such contemporaries as Zbignieuw Preisner, Lisa Gerrard or even Michael Nyman. The meditative quality and expressive emotion of his work, have already taken his work into increasingly high-profile feature films. Melody, and the spaces in-between the notes, are what make Brewer's scores so memorable. His secret lies in the complex and intuitive manner in which he weaves musical textures.
On the film-making process, Brewer feels that: "Film provides an enormous opportunity to explore musical themes and ideas; to play an important part of a larger vision that enables the audience to connect emotionally to characters, places and situations. Given the range of cinematic visions I encounter, I can find myself working with a Chamber Orchestra one moment, and exploring the complexities of a single accordion the next. The scope of what's possible in-between those two extremes, is incredibly exciting."
Brewer's family's history, which includes Black, French, and Native American blood, extends from Louisiana, a culture always synonymous with mixture. The refinement of classical music and the earthiness of world music have always seamlessly overlapped for him, the lines reflecting more a spectrum than a dividing line. For the past decade, Brewer has lived and worked in London, England although his credentials include degrees in Ethnomusicology and Orchestral Composition from U.C. Berkeley.
His career began with the release of his internationally acclaimed album, The Ebbing Wings of Wisdom, and the subsequent collaborative album These Wings Without Feathers with Lisa Gerrard, best known from the soundtrack for 'Gladiators.'
Given the wealth of new music Brewer has composed for films, he has recently developed a compilation album of new work entitled Fade to Black which is planned for release in 2005. In the past year, films have included Nathalie Alonso Casale's Figner and Tobias Tobbell's Every Picture - currently in post-production.
Brewer's musical landscape evolves from contradictions; evocative composition spanning contemporary classical frameworks and music from many cultures and millennia. As well as a composer, Brewer is a recognised ethnomusicologist, and his palette is unashamedly global with Byzantine hymns, Arabic chants, Medieval fugues and French chanson providing frames for reference.
Unusually, Brewer uses the human voice as an instrument, himself a Vocalist as well as Composer, performing his work alongside ensembles and orchestras.
Rhett Brewer was born in the often tense and cosmopolitan world of New York in 1970, surrounded by the sounds of the street. In a recent interview Brewer described how: "Music of the Middle East merged with Russian folk songs. Samba played along side Bossa Nova. The wail of the Saxophone rose above the more urgent tones of an emerging Rap scene. There was an extreme global sound-scape compressed into a hectic and claustrophobic space. Urban life can often be harsh; in response, my passion has been about creating a musical space in which to reflect."
On the compositional side, Brewer might be compared to such contemporaries as Zbignieuw Preisner, Lisa Gerrard or even Michael Nyman. The meditative quality and expressive emotion of his work, have already taken his work into increasingly high-profile feature films. Melody, and the spaces in-between the notes, are what make Brewer's scores so memorable. His secret lies in the complex and intuitive manner in which he weaves musical textures.
On the film-making process, Brewer feels that: "Film provides an enormous opportunity to explore musical themes and ideas; to play an important part of a larger vision that enables the audience to connect emotionally to characters, places and situations. Given the range of cinematic visions I encounter, I can find myself working with a Chamber Orchestra one moment, and exploring the complexities of a single accordion the next. The scope of what's possible in-between those two extremes, is incredibly exciting."
Brewer's family's history, which includes Black, French, and Native American blood, extends from Louisiana, a culture always synonymous with mixture. The refinement of classical music and the earthiness of world music have always seamlessly overlapped for him, the lines reflecting more a spectrum than a dividing line. For the past decade, Brewer has lived and worked in London, England although his credentials include degrees in Ethnomusicology and Orchestral Composition from U.C. Berkeley.
His career began with the release of his internationally acclaimed album, The Ebbing Wings of Wisdom, and the subsequent collaborative album These Wings Without Feathers with Lisa Gerrard, best known from the soundtrack for 'Gladiators.'
Given the wealth of new music Brewer has composed for films, he has recently developed a compilation album of new work entitled Fade to Black which is planned for release in 2005. In the past year, films have included Nathalie Alonso Casale's Figner and Tobias Tobbell's Every Picture - currently in post-production.
