Film Music Award to Karzan Mahmood
Karzan Mahmood, Masters degree student in composition at The Royal College of Music in Stockholm, has received the Sabam Award for Best Young European Composer by the World Soundtrack Academy at the Ghent Film Festival in Belgium.
Karzan Mahmood was born in 1981 in Sulaimaniya in Iraqi Kurdistan, and moved to Sweden in 2005. He already had a solid background in both Kurdish folk music and European classical music.
Since 2007, he has been studying composition at The Royal College of Music in Stockholm (KMH) and is currently studying with professor Karin Rehnqvist. At this time, Karzan is working on a piece for the Radio Choir and hopes that his prize-winning music will also be performed in Stockholm, e.g., with KMH’s Symphony Orchestra.
The contest challenge in Ghent requires that music for a large symphony orchestra be written by a film student for a short animated film.
– Actually it was one of the first times that I wrote something for a large orchestra and I had never had my music performed by a real symphony orchestra says Karzan. Even a week after the award ceremony, he sounds completely overwhelmed.
– For me, this award is a very big deal. The ceremony and celebratory concert were something but possibly even more important was being able to stay in the same hotel and hang out with legendary film music composers like Howard Shore (Lord of the Rings), Gabriel Yared (The Talented Mr. Ripley), Bruno Coulais (Coraline) and others.
– Film music is a field in which contacts are everything, continues Karzan. Maybe the new contacts and all the support and encouragement I got from internationally established composers will make it possible for me to seriously make a go of this.
– Sweden is now my second home, but since I have already fled once I am always prepared to go where I might learn more.
The prize is 2500 Euros and having the film music performed live by the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra.
Denna sida uppdaterades senast: 2012-01-31 av Måns Tengnér