Jocelyn Pook

Jocelyn Pook (/ˈdʒɒslɪn pʊk/; born 14 February 1960) is an English composer, pianist and viola player.^[2][3]

Life and career

Jocelyn Pook graduated in 1983 from London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she studied the viola. She performed with many pop artists including The Communards and Massive Attack, and formed Electra Strings together with Sonia Slany for whom she wrote original material.^[4] She has worked extensively with eminent dance companies such as DV8 and Shobana Jeyasingh, and in 2002 she was commissioned by The Proms to write a work for The King's Singers in collaboration with Andrew Motion.

Pook recorded on two occasions with pianist Jeremy Peyton Jones for Rough Trade and later for Century XXI. About a year later, she joined Anne Stephenson and Audrey Riley to accompany Virginia Astley both on stage and record. Session work followed and alternated with her co-founding of the Electra Strings with Australian violinist Sonia Slany and an album on the Village Life label. This neoclassical chamber quartet later transformed into the Brilliant Strings after she and Slany had gone their separate ways.

As a solo recording artist, Pook released several albums. These included Deluge (1997), Flood (1999) and Untold Things (2001).

Her career as a film composer took flight when cuts from her album Flood were used in Stanley Kubrick's film Eyes Wide Shut. The piece Masked Ball,^[5] which incorporates a fragment of an Orthodox Liturgy played backwards and lyrics sung (or chanted) in Romanian, underscored the masked ball sequence.^[6][7]

Cuts from Jocelyn's album Flood were used in film Eyes Wide Shut

Further scores have subsequently been contributed to several European films, notably the 2004 film version of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Peter Kosminsky's film on David Kelly, The Government Inspector, Brick Lane and 2007's Caótica Ana.^[8][9]

Pook was commissioned to write a short opera, Ingerland,^[10] for ROH2 (the contemporary producing arm of London's Royal Opera House) which was performed in the Royal Opera House's Linbury Studio Theatre in June 2010.^[11]

On 3 December 2012 her work "Hearing Voices", was performed in premiere by Melanie Pappenheim with Charles Hazlewood conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in a concert on the theme of hysteria.^[12] In June 2014 the English National Ballet made their Glastonbury debut on the iconic the Pyramid Stage on the Sunday morning with their performance of Akram Khan's First World War-themed Dust, with Music composed by Jocelyn Pook. The performance was broadcast by the BBC on BBC2.

Miscellaneous

In 1983 Jocelyn appeared in the ABC movie Mantrap as one of many string players for the album The Lexicon of Love.^[13]

Pook frequently works with vocalist Melanie Pappenheim.

Discography

Studio albums

• 1997 – Deluge
• 1999 – Flood
• 2001 – Untold Things

Albums with ensembles

• 1997 – Meeting Electra – Electra Strings & Paul Clarvis (with Sonia Slany) – Village Life 97121 VL

Live theatre

• 2012 – Desh – For the dancework of the group Akram Khan (dancer)

Soundtracks (film and TV)

• 1994-6 – Blight – 14-minute short film by John Smith
• 1999 – Eyes Wide Shut – directed by Stanley Kubrick
• 2000 – My Khmer Heart (Breaking Hearts)
• 2000 – The Sight – directed by Paul Anderson
• 2000 – Enron advert, "Ode to Why Campaign"
• 2000 – Comment j'ai tué mon pére (How I Killed My Father)
• 2001 – In a Land of Plenty – 10 episode BBC drama series produced by Sterling Pictures and Talkback
• 2001 – Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures – documentary, director Jan Harlan
• 2001 – L'Emploi Du Temps (Time Out)
• 2002 – Addicted to the Stars
• 2002 – La Repentie (The Repentant)
• 2002 – La Guerre á Paris (The War in Paris)
• 2003 – Gangs of New York – directed by Martin Scorsese
• 2004 – The Merchant of Venice
• 2004 – Wild Side
• 2004 – Soupçons (The Staircase)
• 2004 – They Came Back
• 2005 – The Government Inspector
• 2005–2006 – Heidi
• 2007 – Brick Lane
• 2007 – Remnants of Everest: The 1996 Tragedy (US: Storm over Everest)
• 2009 – The People v. Leo Frank
• 2009 – Chaotic Ana
• 2009 – Going South
• 2010 – Room in Rome
• 2011 – Room 304
• 2012 – Augustine
• 2012 – Les Invisibles

Singles

• 1997 – "Blow The Wind" – Virgin Records
• 2003 – "Sacrum" (12-inch) – Additive

Various collaborations

• 1993 – Plus from US – various artists – Real World Records
• 1993 – Way Down Buffalo Hell – Jam Nation – ("Sleeping, She Moved Through The Fair") – Real World Records
• 1996 – A Night in London – Mark Knopfler – Mercury Records
• 1997 – Friday the Thirteenth – The Stranglers – ("Waltz in Black", "Valley of the Birds", "Daddy's Riding the Range", "Golden Brown", "No More Heroes")
• 1999 – Liquid Sunshine – Keziah Jones – ("Hello Heavenly", "Runaway", "Teardrops Will Fall") – Delabel
• 2000 – OVO (The soundtrack for the Millennium Dome Show of Cirque du Soleil) – Peter Gabriel – ("Low Light", "The Time of the Turning", "The Weaver's Reel", "Downside Up", "The Nest that Sailed the Sky") – Real World Records
• 2003 – Something Dangerous – Natacha Atlas – ("Adam's Lullaby") – Mantra Records
• 2008 – Ana Hina – Natacha Atlas – World Village^[14]

Awards and honours

• British Composer Award nomination (Stage Works, 2012) for DESH
• Special Mention of the Jury, Karlovy Vary Film Festival (Best Music, 2011) for Room 304
• Olivier Award (Best Music and Sound Design, 2008) for St Joan
• ASCAP Award for Brick Lane
• BAFTA TV Award nomination (Best Original TV Music, 2006) for The Government Inspector
• Classical BRIT Award nomination (Soundtrack Composer, 2005) for The Merchant of Venice
• British Composer Award (Multi-Media, 2003) for Speaking in Tunes
• ASCAP Award for Eyes Wide Shut
• CFCA Award nomination (Best Original Score, 2000) for Eyes Wide Shut
• Golden Globe nomination (Best Original Score – Motion Picture, 2000) for Eyes Wide Shut
• OFCS Award nomination (Best Original Score, 2000) for Eyes Wide Shut

References

External links

• Official website
• Official Facebook
• Official Twitter
• Official Pinterest
• Official YouTube
• Jocelyn Pook at the Internet Movie Database