MERCHANT, Juliet

  I am a composer and classical pianist and I have been writing music for international film and TV for 8 years. I was signed by EMI in 2019 when I began producing music for BBC, ITV and Paramount Pictures and I have also been composing music for Russian films and the way in which I write music has been influenced by my extensive interactions with Russian language and culture. I have been collaborating with Kino Klassika to rewrite film scores for silent black and white films by Russian directors to show on screens in London to the heritage of Russian film. Kino Klassika is a charity focused on presenting modern and historical Russian films in cinemas in the U.K. and I have written new soundtracks in various genres and styles to accompany the following films: The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West In The Land of the Bolsheviks (1924), Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924), A Life For A Life (1916), The Girl With The Hatbox (1927) and Love’s Berries (1926). Furthermore, I worked with the BAFTA winning director Gerry Fox to write the soundtrack for a documentary Force of Nature: Natalia (2019) spotlighting the internationally acclaimed Russian ballerina, Natalia Osipova.

I have performed my music live at the screenings and have done Q&As so that the audience can understand more about the film and the musical process behind it. I have enjoyed working on historical and contemporary films about Russian culture and I would like to bring these films to Russian screens with my soundtrack to show a new audience the combination of historical films with a new modern score. I have been training as a classical pianist for 20 years and I have a specific interest in Russian composers such as Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff and Myaskovsky who I will be performing in concerts in the near future. The metaphor from pain to discovery connects my pieces of music in a way that will challenge categorisations, resist fixed interpretations, and redefine the ways in which we connect with our ever-changing identities. They relate to my own experiences in life and this music is an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of our current societal change. I believe that music is the optimal medium in which to express these ideas because it can create a powerful sense of community within a space and convey a meaning beyond words. I predominantly use the sample library Landforms by Native Instruments and the East West Cloud Library, along with other sample libraries to create music in the minimalist, neo-classical and electronic genre. I have also strongly advocated for minority representation within the classical and film music industry by working with International Film Music Critics Association, Cinematic Sound Radio and Russophiles Unite to create online interviews to highlight the problems about how women are underrepresented and to explore potential solutions. In my next projects I will be working internationally with different contemporary western scores with a focus on female driven films, especially projects that dedicate themselves to anti-racist or anti-homophobic themes.