鈥楩ind the people who need your music!鈥� Meet screen composer and H漫画 alumna Alexandra Harwood
Share
From studying at the Royal College of Music, to juggling parenthood and further study, to walking the red carpet, Alexandra Harwood’s career as a screen and ballet composer is testament to her skill and determination, including much-loved scores for The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and All Creatures Great and Small. Upbeat sat down with Alex to hear about her inspiring career.
When did your love of music develop?
My parents loved music. My dad was an Oscar-winning writer, Ronald Harwood, who wrote screenplays including The Pianist and The Dresser, so the house was always full of art and literature. My mum was a ballet dancer and she spotted my musical interest early on. I’d go to the piano and pick out tunes I’d heard on the TV – I had a good ear, and I always found music easier than words.
I went to Bedales School, which was an incredibly supportive and artistic school, and I never felt different there. I wrote musicals that they actually staged – the first one I wrote when I was four was The Wombles! By the time I was 18 it was pretty much assumed that I’d go to music college.
[quote quote="My H漫画 teacher was Joseph Horovitz, and the first thing he said to me was, ’you’re not a composer yet!’. He pared back everything I thought I knew and built me up from scratch." author=""]
What was it like studying at the Royal College of Music?
I studied composition as an undergraduate at the H漫画 from 1984 to 1988. There was no Composition for Screen course then. My teacher was Joseph Horovitz, and the first thing he said when I walked into his room was, ‘You are not a composer yet!’. Joe stripped back everything I thought I knew and rebuilt it from scratch – counterpoint, theory, Bach chorales. It was incredibly grounding.
I’m a bit of a musical chameleon, which turns out to be very helpful in screen composition. I’m quite good at imitating styles, and Joe often encouraged me to write in the style of composers like Ravel or Debussy, because it’s one of the best ways to learn. That really suited the way my ear works. I won prizes like the Cobbett and Hurlstone Prizes because I understood what they were looking for.
I had brilliant teachers – others included Timothy Salter, Roddy Swanston and John Lambert. There were also incredible visiting musicians. I’ll never forget watching Simon Rattle conduct Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite in a private workshop for just the composers – it’s one of my favourite pieces. George Benjamin used to come and lecture, and Julian Anderson was a contemporary. It was an amazing time.
[image1]
What about your postgrad experience?
I started a Masters in composition at UCLA with William Kraft, who was a fantastic percussionist, composer and very encouraging teacher. After a year of living in LA – which, in truth, wasn’t really for me – he suggested I apply to The Juilliard School in New York. I went for an interview with the late Stephen Albert and David Diamond, among others.
Milton Babbitt ended up being my teacher, which I was thrilled about because he had also taught Stephen Sondheim, of whom I am a huge admirer. Milton was the loveliest man, but we had very different musical approaches.
I realised I really wanted to collaborate more, so I went over to the Juilliard drama department and asked if they needed music for any of their productions. I ended up scoring productions of Shakespeare, Chekhov and some contemporary plays by the actor Tim Nelson. After I graduated, they hired me as their resident theatre department composer, which was an amazing moment.
[quote quote="I threw myself in at the deep end – it was the only way I was going to learn." author=""]
What happened next?
After a short career of writing theatre music and classical commissions, I got married, had children, and decided to stop composing. In the end it was more than 15 years before I started again. I raised my three children, and as my eldest was born with autism, I was very grateful to have that time with them.
After my divorce I needed to find an additional way to financially support the kids. One day I was taking my daughter to a ballet class and bumped into an old friend, the conductor Ben Parry, who was Head of Music at St Paul’s School at the time. He encouraged me to teach there, so I taught music theory for three years. It reintroduced me to the musical world again and reminded me what I really wanted to try next.
[image2]
I knew I needed to find a way to earn a living, and I also knew my real passion was film. A friend who was studying animation at the online school Animation Mentor suggested I join the online forum for his fellow student animators, and offer music for their one-minute graduation films. Ten students asked me to score their films – but I quickly realised I needed up-to-date technology and software skills. I got back in touch with the Royal College of Music.
Vasco Hexel was running the Composition for Screen course then, and he very kindly helped by putting me in touch with an H漫画 student who taught me the basics of Logic Pro. I basically threw myself in at the deep end – it was the only way I was going to learn.
[image3]
How did you find your way into screen composition?
I took a huge risk. I asked the kids, ‘I’d like to do a Masters at the National Film and Television School, but I won’t be home much – is that OK?’ They were 16, 14 and 12 at the time, and they basically lived on ready meals while I studied from 10am until about 11pm most days.
It felt like my only option, because composing was the one thing I knew how to do, and this seemed like the most realistic way to make a living from it. I was constantly working – by the time I finished the course I’d scored around 60 short films. It also taught me how to work with directors and producers and how to interpret what they actually wanted.
After graduating I wrote to absolutely anybody and everybody and kept working on short films and small projects, often hardly earning anything. But two years later I was at Sadler’s Wells and bumped into an old school friend I hadn’t seen in 20 years, who turned out to be producing TV documentaries. She asked me to score her Channel 4 series The History of Entertainment with Frank Skinner – and that was my first real break.
[image4]
A year later the phone rang and someone said, 'Hi, this is Disney!' Another old school friend had seen one of my animation scores and had been keeping an eye on my work. He was now a nature documentary editor for Disney and had recommended me to the production. After several interviews against very stiff competition, I got the job and scored their documentary Growing Up Wild (now on Netflix and Disney+).
We recorded with an ensemble at Air Edel Studios in London, and that project led to my first agent, Maggie Rodford. She then put me forward for the first two films I ended up scoring – including The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. After the Guernsey film I had ten months with no work at all. My friend and fellow composer Dario Marianelli reassured me that this is completely normal after your first big break. My agent put me up for over 30 jobs during that period, and eventually I got the television series All Creatures Great and Small, which I’ve now been scoring for six years. There are two more seasons green-lit – season 7 this year and season 8 next year.
[quote quote="One of the best moments for me is hearing the orchestra play the music live with the dancers dancing to it. Nothing beats that." author=""]
Alongside screen music, you regularly write ballet scores – how did that come about?
By the time my choreographer Kenneth Tindall and I were put in touch in 2018, I had said to myself, ‘I don’t want to write classical music, just TV and film!’ But it’s turned out to be one of the greatest joys and gifts working with him. He’s incredibly creative and collaborative.
We speak before I write each scene and I ask a lot of questions before starting. As I write the music before Kenny creates the ballets, I try to imagine the dancers on stage and write as if I’m working to an image. With ballet there’s no hiding behind dialogue, so I need something visual to respond to. Kenny and I are very often on the same page – we have a very similar sensibility and he’s a real storyteller. One of the best moments for me is hearing the orchestra play the music live with the dancers dancing to it. Nothing beats that.
[image5]
What advice would you give to aspiring screen composers?
Find musicians who can actually play your music. Get to know performers at College and ask them to play your pieces – it’s the best way to learn how to write for instruments.
The people you really need to build a career are directors, producers and even the production runners. Find student filmmakers and offer to write music for their films. Go to screenings, look online, and sometimes it’s worth doing projects for free at first if you think they’re a good investment in other ways. Then gradually build it up. Find the people who need your music.
[image6]
What comes next?
My bucket list is really about music I’d love to write. I’d love to do more films, and I hope I will. I’m also hopeful for more ballet – all the ballets I’ve written with Kenny are being revived and some sections will need reworking.
I have high hopes for our upcoming full-length ballet Dracula with Kenneth Tindall for the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Germany this April. It’s a hybrid of orchestral music and sound design. The choreography is fantastic and the setting – in the fashion world – is brilliant. I don’t know of another setting of this story quite like it.
On my 60th birthday this year, on 9 April, my music will be performed at the London Soundtrack Festival at the Barbican Concert Hall. I’m going to fly back from rehearsals in Germany that day, go to the concert with my family, and then fly back the next morning for the dress rehearsal. Hearing one’s music played by a live orchestra is always extraordinary. It’s the best birthday gift I could ever have been given.
Forthcoming highlights
9 April:
18 April: premiere
Find out more
Composition at the Royal College of Music
Composition for Screen at the Royal College of Music
Publications Officer Joanna Wyld is a writer and librettist who has written CD liner and programme notes for organisations such as the BBC Proms, Southbank Centre, Wigmore Hall and Salzburg Festival.
