Brian Lock is a composer who is equally well known for his sumptuous orchestral film scores and for being at the forefront of the classical/technological boundaries in musical composition.
Brian’s music for films and media is characterised by his large orchestral scores which are used by leading art-house directors worldwide from The Land Girls for the UK’s David Leland, to all the classical music and arrangements in Jane Campion’s The Portrait of a Lady to the French smash hit by Philippe de Brocca Vipère au Poing and for leading Polish directors Mariusz Treliński and Jan Jakub Kolski. He also wrote the music for The Gambler for the doyen of Hungarian Cinema Károly Makk and for Chinese director Zhang Zeming’s Foreign Moon. His music is also widely used on TV, just recently on the BBC’s Coast, Panorama, The Art of Spain and Henry VIII.
Brian’s latest experimental musical projects in audio-visual composition and interactive music, like the Memoryscapes for Flute, iPad and Birds and the Sonata for Clarinet, Laptop and Percussion are all at the forefront of technological application in music leading to stunning new sound worlds and textures that defy present definitions of musical style and are thus, as yet, unclassifiable. His music finds its voice in aspects of musical genres that are normally divided like film music, electronica, contemporary classical, ambient and sound design. His music challenges our present understanding of musical concepts and pushes at the edges of musical genres and form.
Brian also researches in composition and music technology as an academic at the University of London and lectures worldwide at institutions and events including the Royal College of Music, the Sorbonne University, Paris, the Shanghai Conservatory, the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the National Film and Television School. Brian has also acted as a film, media and sonic art music judge for BAFTA, the British Composer Awards for the British Academy of Composers, Authors and Songwriters and for the Ivor Novello awards and academically as a curriculum advisor in music to the International Baccalaureate and as a special advisor to the UK’s REF/RAE (Research Excellence Framework). He is also heavily involved in music for disadvantaged young people and music for health and has just used music technology inventions in his recent opera project Vixen for Glyndeboune. Brian has also held a Reid Fellowship of Columbia University, New York, and is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
