“Vivek’s artistic vision is striking, cinematic, and beautiful…” -Tom Karsch, Turner Entertainment

ABOUT THE COMPOSER

Vivek Maddala is an international award-winning composer and multi-instrumental performer. His music blends melodic symphony writing with syncopated jazz idioms and modern ethnic textures—from European neo-Romanticism to South Asian raga; from modern rock to French Impressionism. The result has been described as “an emotive frenzy of guitar, percussion, brass, woodwinds, and strings.”

While Vivek has focused principally on scoring films, he has written songs for jazz and rock CD releases, and his music has been featured in news stories by NPR, the AP, Crossfader, Variety, and Entertainment Tonight. In 2006, Vivek served as the guest conductor for the Third Angle New Music Ensemble, performing his work as part of their 2006-2007 concert season.

Early in 2008, Vivek was commissioned by the internationally renowned dance company BodyVox to compose the score for their modern ballet, “Horizontal Leanings.” The work explores diverse themes, such as community survival and cultural identity, while contrasting our fragmented world of friction and alienation with a cohesive world of collective effort. The production fuses innovative choreography with Vivek’s postmodern music composition, and will premiere to live audiences beginning May 2008.

Vivek has always sought to write music in the service of achieving social progress—to comment on the world as it is, and hopefully to affect it positively. His score for “They Turned Our Desert Into Fire” blends North African percussion with shadowy string textures and voice to illuminate the film’s story of the ongoing genocide in Darfur and the associated humanitarian crisis of refugee camps on the continent. His brooding, passionate score for “Ace of Hearts” invokes the broken social and economic structures that promote poverty and injustice here in the US (and elsewhere around the globe). Accordingly, Vivek continues to seek out projects that lift the human spirit—to challenge the function of war and elucidate the human condition.

When writing music for visual media, Vivek speaks with his own personal style, his own musical voice. His scores supplement and strengthen the narrative and emotional components, characterizing and framing the picture—above all, serving the dramatic vision of the director. Elegant musical motifs and careful orchestration combine to give Vivek’s music a distinctive flavor that moves gracefully between tradition and innovation; with equal parts euphoria and introspection; frantic while elegant; drunken yet precise; and utterly human.

HONORS AND AWARDS

• Grand Prize / Young Film Composers Competition (2000)
• ASCAP Film Scoring Fellowship (2002)
• International JPF award for Best Soundtrack Album of the Year (2005) – The Patsy
• Reviewer’s Pick for 2006, Pro Audio Review
• Electronic Musician 2007 Editor’s Choice Award
• Future Music ACE Award (2007)
• Film & TV Music Award nomination (2007), Grasshopper
• MusicTech Choice Award (2007)
• Gold Medal for Artistic Excellence, Park City Film Music Festival, Wild Oranges (2008)
• Gold Medal for Artistic Excellence, Audience Favorite, Park City Film Music Festival, Grasshopper (2008)

NOTABLE SCORES COMPOSED BY VIVEK MADDALA

• Horizontal Leanings
• They Turned Our Desert Into Fire
• Whispers from Poland
• Walking Tall
• Ice Spiders (co-composer)
• Nuclear Hurricane (co-composer)
• Flash Gordon (TV Series, additional music)
• Grasshopper
• Wild Oranges
• Portland at Play
• Catch Up
• The Ring
• Mother
• Moon Chasing
• Omar and Fiona
• Gidoo’s Cosmic Crisis
• The Patsy
• Martha’s Bakery
• Mysterious Lady
• Equation
• The Flag
• Ace of Hearts

• indicates award winner