Anže Rozman and Kara Talve Transcript
Episode link, Podcast, Video and Bonuses
Kara Talve:
Our whole premise of the score with Hans and Russell, we always wanted to make the soundscape very otherworldly and unique and something that you've never heard before. So we wanted to have the orchestra for sure. I mean, that conveys so much emotion, and that's kind of the relatable part of the score that will remind you of Planet Earth and make you feel like the dinosaurs are really with you. But at the same time, we wanted to add a layer with the orchestra that brings you back 66 million years.
Anže Rozman:
How didn't that just destroy you? And then I thought, "Yeah, how didn't it?" I guess I was so used to for about 10 years to that point, most people laughing at my music and laughing at what I was doing, but I just had that passion that I wanted to do this. So again, for the younger listeners, you have to have that passion and drive and not letting the negativity thrown at you get to you, but listen to yourself and get close with the people that nurture that energy that you have.
Leah Roseman:
Hi, you're listening to Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman. This is the first time I featured two musicians in one episode. Kara Talve and Anže Rozman are composers with Bleeding Fingers Music, and together wrote with Hans Zimmer the acclaimed score to the incredible TV series Prehistoric Planet. I was so impressed by this series, and the first part of this episode digs into the unique instruments that were created for this powerful score. And the other part of this episode is a personal and in-depth conversation with Kara and Anže about their lives in music. This episode features a lot of music.
Like all my episodes, I've included detailed timestamps, and you can listen to this on your favorite podcast player, watch the YouTube video, read the transcript, and see the gallery of images related to the episode, all linked on my website, LeahRoseman.com. There, you can sign up for my newsletter to get exclusive sneak peeks to upcoming episodes and reminders of episodes you missed. I've featured several other film and TV composers as well as a fascinating diversity of musicians worldwide. I'm an independent podcaster who really needs your help. Please help me out with a virtual coffee. The link is in the description. Now let's get to Prehistoric Planet.
Hi Kara and Anže. Thanks so much for joining me here today.
Anže Rozman:
Thank you for inviting us.
Kara Talve:
Thanks for having us.
Leah Roseman:
So it's unusual for me. I've had other couples, but I've interviewed them separately, separate episodes, and this is the first time I've had a couple together who have a working relationship and a personal relationship. It's very cool. What I'd love to do is start with Prehistoric Planet, which I'm very excited about, and I know a lot of my listeners will be. And we'll talk about that project and then also talk about you separately as individual composers in your lives and music. So I am a big fan. I watched all of Prehistoric Planet. I listened to the podcast about the making of that Apple put out, which is really great and that I think it's wonderful. And you've been nominated for an Emmy, which is well deserved, I think.
Kara Talve:
Thank you.
Leah Roseman:
So if you want to maybe start talking about... It's interesting, Bleeding Fingers Music collective. First of all, what is with that name, and who came up with it?
Kara Talve:
Well, it was neither of us, if that answers part of your question. I think it had to do with the song, but I can't remember something like Practice Till Your Fingers Bleed. Wasn't that it, Anže?
Anže Rozman:
No idea. But our CEO Russell Emanuel, who formed Bleeding Fingers with Steve Kofsky and Hans Zimmer probably around a decade ago now, he is very good with word play and puns. And you should probably have him on your podcast, and he could probably explain himself.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Well, I do remember my violin teacher saying at a certain point, "We used to practice this till our fingers were bleeding." So maybe it's like an expression.
Anže Rozman:
As far as I remember, I asked him once, but they were searching for a name that would be unusual for a music industry company that people would go like, "Oh, what is that?"
Leah Roseman:
Certainly, it makes that impact. Anyway, so it's a wonderful collective of film and TV composers. And the music to Prehistoric Planet, if you could explain, I think there's a real key to why it's very special.
Kara Talve:
Sure. Well, our whole premise of the score with Hans and Russell, we always wanted to make the soundscape very otherworldly and unique and something that you've never heard before. So we wanted to have the orchestra, for sure. I mean, that conveys so much emotion, and that's kind of the relatable part of the score that will remind you of planet Earth and make you feel like the dinosaurs are really with you. But at the same time, we wanted to add a layer with the orchestra that brings you back 66 million years. So that's where we came up with the idea to use bones and petrified wood and dinosaur replica fossils to make instruments that have this other-worldly sound that you've never heard in any other score.
Leah Roseman:
I'm grateful to Kara, Anže and Bleeding Fingers Music for sharing a couple of the reels they created. The first one gives you a chance to listen to some of the instruments we'll be talking about, including Mark Deutsch's Bazantar. And you'll also get to hear a bit of the orchestral score as well in the second clip. Later in this episode, you'll have the opportunity to hear some beautiful concert music of both Kara and Anže, along with their personal stories. You can use the timestamps to navigate this episode as needed.
Kara Talve:
These are a few instruments from the Rajasaurus scene, the Triceratone (music), Fat Rex(music), Hadro Cello(music). This episode also features Mark Deutsch on his custom instrument, the Bazantar (music).
Hi, we're the composers of Prehistoric Planet alongside Hans Zimmer, and this instrument is very heavy.
Anže Rozman:
Today we want to show you some of our favorite orchestral moments. (music)
Leah Roseman:
And you had a colleague who helped you, what's his name? Chaz LaBrecque?
Anže Rozman:
Yeah, Charles LaBrecque. Yes.
Leah Roseman:
He helped build. So what's his story? Is this one of the main things he does is create instruments?
Anže Rozman:
He's been working at the remote control complex and with Hans for years, and he's kind of this mad genius, go-to guy when anything you need fixing, he can fix. So he's also been building instruments for Hans for several years. So when we got this crazy idea of putting, slapping strings on bones and slapping bones on cellos and slapping dinosaur skulls on double basses, and he was the guy to call. And the cool thing about him is that he's such a perfectionist in his craft and making instruments as far as we've talked to him is one of his passions. So whenever he gets a chance to do something like this, he goes completely full on into the project with his partner Cindy as well. She helped a lot.
So when me and Kara were composing for season 1 or season 2, Chaz would just appear in our door of the studio with a new instrument. He's like, "I made this. Try it out." And so a lot of times these instruments would make it into the scoring in very early prototype stages in the middle of us composing, just seeing what sounds they make. And it hugely influenced a lot of the scenes how we compose them because there was a element of uncertainty and exploration in the process just because of these instruments, and it made it a lot funner.
Leah Roseman:
I just had a good idea. I'm wondering if you might be able to share some of the images of the instruments, and I could put them in a little gallery linked to your show notes for this episode.
Anže Rozman:
Yeah, of course. I mean, we can also show a few of them here. This is one of the first ones, the raptor violin. It's a bone with a-
Leah Roseman:
Very cool.
Anže Rozman:
... petrified wood bridge. And then I'll show you the biggest one. He's a heavy boy. Triceratone, the biggest one we built for season 2, but I better put him away because it's quite a dangerous weapon.
Leah Roseman:
So Anže, mostly people are listening to this in podcast format, so they didn't just see what you were holding up. That's why it'll be cool to have a gallery, but maybe just describe it briefly.
Anže Rozman:
So the instruments went from the smallest to the biggest through time. So the first prototype was basically a bone that we managed to string a cello string over it and put a contact mic on it. And we plugged it in and made some sound. And both me and Kara were in the room, and we were like, "Whoa, that's actually pretty cool. That does sound unique." So then the next step was giving this bone and a fossilized ice age horse bone that we bought online to Chaz and see what he can do with it. So he made tuning pegs and actually made it into a playable instrument.
The next step we put a larger bone on a cello, and then we just slowly went bigger, more bassier, eventually leading to the Triceratone, which is a two string instrument. People think that it should have three strings because it's called the Triceratone. We tried three strings, but we were scared for too much tension on the body of the instruments, so now it's two strings. So it's a double-base neck, ammonite crest, Velociraptor claw tuning pegs. That's aesthetically. But the body of the instrument is the Nedoceratops skull replica, and it's definitely our favorite instrument that we made, most ambitious and looks really cool.
Leah Roseman:
So you might be willing to improvise a little bit on a couple of these instruments for us today. Give us a taste?
Anže Rozman:
Yeah, I can try.
Leah Roseman:
The episode I was just editing this morning, which is coming out next week, is this incredible Mongolian musician in Australia. So he does the harmonic overtone singing, and he plays the horsehead fiddle.
Kara Talve:
Oh, wow.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah.
Anže Rozman:
I just finished a book about the life of Genghis Khan, speaking about Mongolia. Super, super interesting. But one of these instruments, the Fat Rex, I'll play it, the second instrument I'll play. It's such a weird coincidence kind of how it happened because I was inspired to make an instrument like this because of the Mongolian morin khuur, the Mongolian cello, is it called? The Fat Rex, the instrument is predominantly used for the Velociraptors in the show of Prehistoric Planet and the first scene of the Velociraptors, in Freshwaters of season 1, as far as I understand, the fossil remain of those Velociraptors that the scene was based on were found in Mongolia. So it's a very weird coincidence how that instrument then got paired with that animal. And the inspiration for the instrument was the Mongolian morin khuur.
Leah Roseman:
Very cool. And actually I have to say, so my episode with Bukhu is coming out. It'll be the last one before my summer break, so it's the one immediately before your episode. So if listeners haven't heard, he demonstrates all different regional styles of morin khuur and all this Mongolian culture and music, so people should check it out.
Anže Rozman:
This is one of our Raptor Violins. This one is a fossil one made out of an ice age horse, fossil tibia bone, I believe, and petrified wood bridge. It doesn't make very pretty sounds, but definitely unique. Can you hear it?
Leah Roseman:
Yes.
Anže Rozman:
You will hear this sound a lot throughout the score. It's always somewhere in the background, or sometimes we double the violins in the Imperobator scene of islands episode of season 2. We double tracked it. Well, a dozen tracked it, 12 takes of this one and three other ones playing with the violins high string.
And that's this one. Now we're going to go to the Fat Rex, the Velociraptor instrument. So this is the Fat Rex, and as you can see, the head is a T-Rex skull, and the morin khuur usually has, I think, a horse head and the two strings. I'll actually plug it in just so it's a bit louder. Yeah, a frame drum, and it also has six strings in the back. Usually we try to tune them to the exact same tuning as the top strings. Now, everything's out of tune, but they should kind of resonate. The interesting one is the low string, which also reminds me of Mongolian throat singing.
Well, messed up. So that's the Fat Rex. Sorry for the noise. And now the final one. There's a few more. We don't have time to play all of them, so this is the Triceratone. We'll try to go in frame. Oh my God, I have so many cables around everywhere that it's... Excuse me. Okay.
Leah Roseman:
Beautiful. Thank you.
Anže Rozman:
It's actually a small chunk of the instruments that we made. There's probably five, six more.
Leah Roseman:
Hi, just a quick break from the episode. I'm an independent podcaster, and I really do need my listeners' help. Please consider buying me a coffee. The link to my Ko-fi page is in the description. Every dollar helps me cover the costs of this huge project. Thanks so much.
This next audio clip is from a powerful scene in Prehistoric Planet, the T-Rex courtship, and the instrument you're about to hear in this clip is called the euphone. We didn't actually end up talking about this instrument in our interview, but afterwards Kara and Anže sent me this clip to edit in. And it really resonated with me because not only did I love that scene in Prehistoric Planet, but I actually saw one of these rare instruments in a live performance very recently with a previous guest of the series, Jesse Stewart. The way it works is they're these small glass tubes that are stroked lengthwise with a wet finger, and then it has these resonators. So here's the euphone from the T-Rex courtship seen in Prehistoric Planet. (music)
Yeah. And Kara, you guys also reached out to people like Stefan Keller who played the subcontrabass flute. I love that sound. It's so beautiful. It's with the animal that lives in the sea, right? The big pre predator?
Kara Talve:
Yes, that's right. The Mosasaur theme was played on the subcontrabass flute. I mean, he's the biggest sea predator, so that's why we wanted the biggest instrument to play his theme, and it really works well for him. It's super low and rumbly and perfect for a sea animal. We had a lot of really cool soloists that hopped onto the score and just made it so unique and their own.
Anže Rozman:
Yeah, we also had Doug Webb then on season 2 also for a different species of Mosasaur, the Globidens Mosasaur. We recorded him on his subcontrabass saxophone then.
Kara Talve:
Yeah, we can send you a picture of that too. It's pretty crazy.
Anže Rozman:
He recorded it in his living room, and he says that he likes to do that because it's the only place it would fit. He needs to get a U-Haul if he wants to travel around with it.
Leah Roseman:
And also there is the Bazantar, Mark Deutsch, that huge 39-string base.
Anže Rozman:
Working with Mark, I mean, one of the really, really cool things that I think both me and Kara cherish about the project is the ability to explore these different sounds and just connect with other really creative people. Mark is definitely one of the most unique people I've met in my life, and Kara would probably agree. He once came to LA with his Bazantar before we recorded him, and he came to our studio. And he just improvised here for us and let us play the instrument and talked about how he's been building it for 20 years or so out of his garage basically.
And for people that don't know, it's a custom double bass that he made, I think, completely from scratch with 39 sympathetic strings and six strings, not four strings like the double base usually has. And it goes a perfect fourth lower than double bass, so a low G, such a unique instrument. So it became hugely important for the Badlands episode, which Kara wrote the theme for, and then Mark played on almost all the scenes on the Bazantar. And that's the episode that got nominated for the Emmy. Because I love the Bazantar so much, I went and bought a six-string cello with 12 sympathetics, but it's nowhere as cool as Mark's, my 18 string cello. There is nothing compared to Mark's bazantar. That instrument is an absolute work of art.
Leah Roseman:
So Hans Zimmer worked with you guys on the score. How did you guys share the work? What does that look like?
Kara Talve:
Well, on any project, we really just delegate the work in a way where we highlight everybody's strengths, and I think that process is really important. And before we score anything, we talk about every scene and the soundscape altogether. It's a big collaborative effort between Anže and I and Hans and Russell, and that kind of sets the tone for the entire series. So those beginning stages of assigning the scenes and talking about the soundscape is really important to the way the rest of the project will sound. So those brainstorming time periods are essential.
Anže Rozman:
And we don't always get the luxury to have time to brainstorm. So with Prehistoric Planet, we had that luxury. And then these projects are the most fulfilling because everyone throws in their sack of ideas. The majority get rejected, but then the ones that stay everyone agrees upon. And you get this very nice energetic conglomerate of can I say "brilliant minds" working together at a single cause? And I'm saying that, not that we are brilliant minds, but everyone that created the project, I think it was over a thousand people that collaborated on Prehistoric Planet.
Kara Talve:
And everyone at the BBC was so receptive of the ideas, and they were just so open to it. I mean, they could have easily said, "No, this is weird, please do something normal." But they really wanted us to just do something outside the box and cool, and we just got to run.
Anže Rozman:
Yeah, I remember that before we started scoring or maybe we scored one or two scenes, Kara and I decided to do a video of our first prototypes of our custom instruments, and we sent them to the directors and the showrunners. And I remember we were like, "Oh man, this was a bad idea. They're going to hate this." And then the next morning we awoke to a super nice email how the video has already circulated throughout the team, and everyone's so excited, and we should keep going with that. And we were like, "Okay, that's really good news."
Leah Roseman:
I was thinking about you work in a pretty big composer's collective, and how it seems to me, I've talked to a number of Hollywood composers now, there's a tendency to have these bigger studios with different levels, a hierarchy with assistance and all that, as opposed to when you were both first starting out just composing by yourselves, especially when you were students and so on. It must be such a different feeling to be able to feed off other people's creativity. If you start to run into a creative block, I'm imagining someone just helps you along with that.
Kara Talve:
Yeah, we still sometimes work as solo composers here on the team, but I much prefer working on a team with people. And Anže and I working together was such a cool process because we could finish each other's cues if we were kind of stuck or we would give each other feedback, or sometimes the custom instruments would be an important part of the music, so we could kind of feed off of that rather than starting from scratch. I would just ask Anže to improvise something, and that's the inspiration for the cue. And also it's really great that we have Russell and Hans to listen to stuff because their feedback is so important to the process. And that's also where we get a lot of our ideas and inspiration from. So we're lucky to have that kind of layer of other ears listening to it before sending it out to the clients.
Anže Rozman:
Yeah. And you were saying about the hierarchy. I mean, almost every Hollywood composer, if we put us under that cap, has a team of people. I think the main difference is how the team of people is treated and what the intent of the team of people is. At Bleeding Fingers, the hierarchy is kind of the same where people started as assistants. Kara, for example, started as an assistant, and then there's junior composer. The junior composer's role is to help the composer with music or additional cues or conforms, et cetera. And then you have composer, and then above composer, you have Russell and Hans. So what I'm trying to say...
Kara Talve:
Some score supervisors in between.
Anže Rozman:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But what sets Bleeding Fingers apart and especially I think Kara's team and my team, Kara has three people, I have two, that we love to mentor. And the idea is they help you while we also help them. It's basically a paid mentorship. And I really, really enjoy that process, and I'm very happy that a few people that Kara and me have trained up are now hired as composers here at Bleeding Fingers, and it's very fulfilling. And you form this type of bond with the people you work with that is very hard to sever.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Anže, when I was learning about you, I was very struck by you seem to have a very good instinct for collaboration and networking. So when you were still a student in Slovenia, you were reaching out to other players to say, "Hey, I'll write something for you." Because when I saw your flute music and I sent it right away to my flute colleague, "Check this out," and then I said, "What's with all the flute music?" And then I realized, "Oh, somebody started playing it, and they told other flute players." So can you talk to that experience a little bit, going back to your early days as a composer?
Anže Rozman:
Yeah. Well, I would call myself a late bloomer as a composer. I mean, I started composing music when I was nine, 10, but it was quite bad. Actually, yesterday, at around-
Kara Talve:
I'm laughing because we were listening to some of it last night, and I was like, "How were you this bad at writing music?"
Anže Rozman:
But it was that passion that I think most artistic and successful people have in common, that you just feel something that you need to do. And for me it was I just wanted to write music. So when I finally gained the courage to apply for the Music Academy, the music college, so after high school, and got told by my piano teacher that I would bring shame to her name, and that she will not prepare me for my exams, when I actually got accepted, my goal was I don't want to be a student composer. I want to be a composer. So if I want to be a composer, I want people to play my music. So I was very, very annoying going to absolutely everyone that I knew, "Can I write you a piece? Can I write you a piece?"
And my friend, Kaja Lešnjak, a flutist, she said, "Sure." And I wrote for her the Tale of the Forest Nymph, which was my first flute piece. And that flute piece, her professor gave to three of more of her students. Sorry, his students. And then it just kind of avalanched from there because Kaja had a flute quartet also, and then I wrote two pieces for her flute quartet. And then another flute quartet came for a commission, and then the professors came for commissions. And then soon after, I was writing flute music all the time. And now I have probably around four hours of flute music written.
Leah Roseman:
You're about to hear an excerpt from the third movement of Phoenix for solo flute and orchestra by Anže Rozman. This movement is entitled Last Flight/Death, and I'm including as a bonus connected to this episode the complete movement, which you can listen to separately. The solo flutist is Eva-Nina Kozmus. The conductor is George Pehlivanian, and the orchestra is the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra.(music)
And interesting combinations, right? Multiple flute parts.
Anže Rozman:
I love writing for a flute ensembles. It's actually a very good community for young composers to step into if they want their music performed because I feel that pianists have a very hard time deviating from the standard repertoire, violinists also. Cellists are a bit more open. Double bassist will play anything that you write for them. And then if you go to the woodwinds, clarinetists like to stick to standard repertoire, I think. And then you come to flutes, and flutes will play anything. And you have the alto flute, the base flute, amazing instruments, and then the subcontrabass flutes and the contrabass flutes, such unique sounds. So if you're a young composer listening, write flute music because it's going to get played for sure.
Leah Roseman:
Very cool. And people can buy your flute music on your website, right? The sheet music.
Anže Rozman:
Not on my website, I think, but on my publisher's website. It's ALRY Publications. You can find it.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. I was thinking. I have a colleague from Slovenia, and for many years, he's told me how much he misses it and how beautiful it is. And I have a daughter who lives in Europe, and she was in Ljubljana last year and saying how beautiful it was. And you must miss it.
Anže Rozman:
Yes, yes. Who's the colleague?
Leah Roseman:
A part of his personality is how much he misses Slovenia.
Anže Rozman:
Yeah, Kara knows more than anyone, but who's the colleague?
Leah Roseman:
Edvard Škerjanc is a violinist in the National Art Center Orchestra where I play.
Anže Rozman:
Ah, Edvard Škerjanc. Is he related to the late composer Marija Lucijan Škerjanc?
Leah Roseman:
I don't believe so. I think he might have mentioned that if that's the case.
Anže Rozman:
He might be and Škerjanc was arguably, I would say, the best Slovenian composer that ever lived and one of our rare impressionistic composers, absolutely beautiful music. But yes, homesickness is the thing that I've struggled, I would say, the most since moving here. And only after five years now I feel that it's slowly leaving my body. I don't think it will ever go away, but I've come to terms with it, but it was a very hard process. It's very hard to explain that severance of your roots and just kind of being transplanted somewhere else and growing new baby roots. And if it weren't for Kara, I mean, she was the biggest help for me here. And if it weren't for her, I don't think I would be able to manage. So thank you.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. And you're able to go back now, and you have a studio set up there, so you can work there as well.
Anže Rozman:
Yeah, I built a studio out of all of my savings approximately half a year before I moved here. So I built the studio, and then I left. And that also sucked because I had no money, and I was about 10 grand in debt still to my contractors. So I was completely broke for the first year, and the studio was just there. And I was like, "Why did I build the studio there?" But now, I can go home several times a year. I try every few months, and I have a mirrored system in Slovenia, so I can work there when I'm with my family. And also when Kara was with me, the last two Decembers and Januaries, we also just did some tracks and listened to the BBC session for Prehistoric Planet from my studio. So it's really nice to have.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Now, because you guys are working on such big projects, you were able to actually have a wonderful orchestra, a BBC orchestra. That's a luxury a lot of composers don't have.
Kara Talve:
Yeah, that's true. We were really lucky to work with them because not only is it an orchestra, which is great that we have it, but they're also the best orchestra that we've ever worked with. Every cue, they would just nail it, sometimes take one, just perfect. So they were great, and the conductors were great and the soloists.
Anže Rozman:
A lot of session orchestras are really good sight-readers, but then the first take some sometimes lacks depth or emotion or whatever. And the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, what blew us away was not only did they sight-read everything, but they also sight-read it with passion. And then they were so open to any weird ideas that we had. For the Badlands episode, I think it was a two-day session. We couldn't finish the first day, so we told all the strings to play in Bollywood style, so sliding and all the flutes to play like an Egyptian ney, so very breathy sound.
And then the next day, they would still remember these notes and some cues in the Islands episode needed a similar sound. And we would just have to say, "Matthew, can you play that ney sound again? Or Leslie, can you do the Bollywood?" And they would just immediately know what we thought and make it their own and not complain about it, put a smile on their faces and just go for it.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Well, I mean, as an orchestral musician, I mean, that's what we love is if we can just get an idea and go with it and not rehearse. Because most of us, that's what we want is just the immediacy. So it's wonderful that you could work with them. And in terms of networking, Anže, so you did your master's in film scoring at Berklee in Spain, which I found interesting because I didn't even know that existed.
Anže Rozman:
Yes. So I did my bachelor's in Slovenia at our Music Academy, our only music college. And then after I finished, I applied to Berklee Valencia in Spain because they just opened the master's program one year before. So the reason behind is first it was closer. It's basically one hour and a half plane ride. Second, it was cheaper. I don't think I would able to afford going to Boston for four years. And it's Spain. It was very, very nice. And my classmates from Berklee, we're still very, very much connected and great friends.
But the problem that I saw in the Berklee campus was that it was also in Spain. So as a film composer, I think, most film composers want to test them out and test themselves out in the LA waters. So the difficulty was getting connections then with LA working composers and actually figuring out how to eventually get there.
Leah Roseman:
So I was quite impressed to learn that you had set up all these sort of informal interviews. You just reached out to people.
Anže Rozman:
Oh, yeah. Wow, you did your research. I'm very impressed. So my thought process was exactly how do we students get in touch with working composers in LA? So I started emailing or adding on Facebook, working composers in the industry and just being very casual saying, "We're 32 students or 31, we just want to chat over Zoom. Anytime, it's good for us. It's not going to be recorded. It's not an interview." And a lot of people responded. So we ended up talking to Eric Whitacre, Oliver Arnold, Mychael Danna, Bear McCreary, Christopher Leonards, Penka Kouneva, Daniel James, and I'm quite sure I'm missing someone. But all the talks were so casual, and the composers opened up also about the difficult subjects, how life is in LA.
But I also wanted to get Hans on board, and I added him on Facebook. And he was gracious and just said, "Sorry, I would love to, but I don't have time." But eventually then, later that year, Berklee took us to AIR Studios to record our final projects, and Hans was there recording Interstellar at the same time. He got locked out of the studio. But because I already kind of connected with him on Facebook, he recognized who I was, so we were able to have a brief chat. And then long story short, he eventually found the recording that I did in AIR Studios online and reached out to me. And five years later, I reached out to him and asked if I can come to Bleeding Fingers and work here.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. But when you reached out to him, I mean, you were well established in Slovenia after you graduated.
Anže Rozman:
Yeah, I had a very successful career as a composer in Slovenia. And the reason why I decided to move is completely out of the fear that I got too comfortable. Because once you're in this small bubble and you eventually in a small bubble like Slovenia, very soon you end up working with everyone. And then there's that excitement. That childish excitement kind of started to dwindle, and I said, "Well, I have this friend Hans Zimmer on Facebook, and he likes all my posts and comments on..." He's a big fan of Laibach, the Slovenian, I don't know how you would call it, industrial band or whatever that I worked a lot with. So I knew he was following me on Facebook and following my career. So I kind of just called him and asked, and it worked out.
Leah Roseman:
And I had also learned, and I found it for younger composers or people trying to break in, like you had said, you were in debt. So when you moved to Hollywood, you had the very fortunate thing that you were already hired as a composer. You weren't assisting. But it was still super expensive, right? To live in LA just in terms of practical considerations?
Anže Rozman:
Well, yeah. I'll put it this way, that I was also dumb in a way that I didn't properly calculate how much my paycheck would be after tax and how expensive life here would be. And I came here to LA, landed. I already had an apartment that I booked online two months in advance, which was $2,200 a month because I wanted to live alone, not with roommates, and close to the studio, which is Santa Monica, and it's expensive. But I wasn't calculating properly how expensive life would be. So I had a Google sheet tracking how much I can spend every day in order to make rent end of month. And I'm not blaming anyone here except me.
But for young listeners listening, the younger audience that are thinking about pursuing any career in LA, I would give this advice. First, don't come here if you don't know what you want to do. If you decide to come here without a job offer already on the table, have around 60 grand saved up because that will make you comfortable for a year, I would say. And then be prepared that even if you come here, especially if you're not American, that the first three to four years are going to going to be an uphill battle for a lot of things. There's a lot of things that just come up and you need to deal with, like the visas and green cards and all sorts of things.
So I remember Penka Kouneva that we spoke to at Berklee, she said, "You will need three to six years in LA for anyone to take you seriously." And then that always kind of scared me, and I said, "Ah, that can't be quite right." And she was so right. Now it's been five years and a half here for me in LA, and I see that what she said is true.
Leah Roseman:
Hmm. Yeah. And Kara, for you, I mean you aren't coming from Europe, but you're coming from Long Island, the East coast. Culturally, have you found it a bit weird? Are you used to it, culture?
Kara Talve:
I like it much better here. I feel like the people are more... I mean, we don't have to get into politics, but Long Island is not my favorite place anymore. I think a lot changed, or maybe when I came out here, I realized when I would go back, I'm like, "Okay, things are kind of weird here." But there was just nothing left for me there. Obviously, my family and my friends are there, but I wanted to pursue film music, and Long Island is definitely not the place for that. And New York City also didn't really have the film scene that I was looking for, and I knew that I needed to come out here and make some connections.
So like Anže said, I definitely didn't want to come out here with nothing. So I had a few internships already lined up before I graduated from Berklee, and I knew that I had some friends out here, Gina, who's also a composer, who let me crash on her couch for a few months while I was getting myself together. And yeah, I don't know that I even would've moved out if I had nothing lined up and didn't know anybody at all. So it's good to have that Berklee network out here.
Leah Roseman:
And you worked for Bear McCreary?
Kara Talve:
Yeah, I was an intern at his studio, Sparks & Shadows. And then, eventually, I moved on to do some music editing type of things for some of his shows. And during that time period is when I was offered an assistant position at Bleeding Fingers, so I was kind of doing both at the same time, which was very chaotic. I would wake up really early, do the stuff for Bear, and then by 6:00 PM, I would come here until midnight or 1:00 AM to finish doing my assistant stuff. And it was just a constant grind until I eventually just decided I want to pursue the Bleeding Fingers thing because I want to write. And that was a good choice.
Leah Roseman:
And you write for The Simpsons. You're the main composer there.
Kara Talve:
That's right, yeah. I'm the principal composer for The Simpsons on the past three to four seasons.
Leah Roseman:
So that's, I'm guessing, quite more theme-based. Comedy is so different than documentary.
Kara Talve:
Yeah, so different. Yeah, it definitely has its sound, and it's a very long musical legacy before I was even born. So yeah, it's a big responsibility to keep that musical legacy going. And I make sure, or I try to make sure that every piece of music that goes to Russell and to the production is as great quality as possible because it's really important to me that that show has very high standards always.
Leah Roseman:
So Kara, I was really moved to hear about the incredible story about your grandmother, and I was wondering if you'd be willing to share that with us?
Kara Talve:
Yeah, of course. So my grandmother, when she was a young girl, she was living in France. I guess it was 1942 or '43. And obviously, that was during the sweep of, I guess, the Greek-born Jews that were being taken by the Nazis at the time. And sorry, I didn't expect to talk about this today, so I need to gather the thoughts. So she was living with her family, and I guess one evening some SS officers arrived at the apartment, and they took her entire family, except for her because she somehow wasn't on the list, so they didn't have her information. And her mother just pushed her out of the way. She's like, "You don't have any business with her. She's not on your list."
And then they took them presumably to Auschwitz. I think that was kind of the path, and she was just left alone. I think she escaped through the fire escape. She just went to go find the nearest person, and I think that was her piano teacher. So she hid with her for the remainder of the war, to my understanding. And her piano teacher was Christian, and she was hiding not only my grandma, but many Jews. She was working with the French resistance. And my grandma's piano right here is her piano that survived the war, and I think they shipped it on a boat from Paris. And yeah, I inherited it.
She passed away a few years ago, but this was her piano when we were growing up. This was the one in her house that she would play, and we would play together. And it's delightfully out of tune and kind of weird. It's a bird cage piano. How do I describe this? I mean, you can see the way that the strings are laid out. This is a really old way of building uprights, but it can't be tuned because the strings are so old that they would just break. So I just would rather keep it in its natural form. And yeah, I like to use it on shows, especially ones that have to do with the time period and the topic.
Leah Roseman:
After we recorded this episode, I did some research on this piano teacher of Kara's grandmother, and I found an obituary in French about her. And Kara agreed it would be an excellent idea to put this little insert to honor her memory and that of her brave parents.
Andrée Levallois was part of the French resistance with her parents. She sheltered and protected her student, Mathilde Scialky, Kara's grandmother. Mathilde was the daughter of a Jewish family who had emigrated from Salonika, Greece. After Mathilde escaped the Nazis, Andrée enrolled her in the neighborhood school with her own last name of Levallois, which happened either in December of 1942 or January 1943. 18 months later on June 6th, 1944, Andrée, along with her parents were arrested as the Nazis were searching for the missing Jewish child, Mathilde. Tragically, Andrée's father, Louis Levallois died in the prison of Fresnes. Her mother, Augustine Roux was released. But Andrée was sent to the Ravensbrück camp then Neuengamme near Hamburg. But finally, she was liberated in May 1945. She was repatriated to France in July of 1945, where she continued her career as a music teacher in Paris and lived with her mother. Kara told me that according to her grandmother, Mathilde, Andrée hid other children as well.
It's an incredible story. And so your grandmother really influenced you growing up, hearing her play, being able to play with her?
Kara Talve:
Yeah, we played a lot of classical music together, specifically Debussy, we played a lot. That was the thing we did together.
Leah Roseman:
You're about to hear an excerpt from Kara Talve's concert piece, Winter Rhapsody. And I'm including, as a bonus connected to this episode, the complete work, which you can listen to separately. This performance is by the Lancaster Symphony with conductor Steven Gunzenhauser.(music)
And I wanted to ask you about a couple of your mentors at Berklee. You took this course with Ruth Mendelson, and when I looked her up, I was kind of like, "Wow, how cool." And what an amazing mentor for you. Do you want to speak to that experience a little bit?
Kara Talve:
Yeah, that was one of the most important classes in my experience at Berklee. I really wanted to pursue nature documentaries, and so that's also why I really wanted to come to Bleeding Fingers. Ruth, she did a lot of work with Jane Goodall, and I thought that was so cool, and I heard amazing things about her. And this class, you have to kind of apply to get in. I think they only accept six or eight people, something crazy. I'm like, "There's no way I am going to even get into this." And then she accepted me, and I was really excited.
And I learned a lot about documentary music from her. I think she was the person who kind of explains the subtlety of writing music for a documentary versus something like The Simpsons or live action or whatever. But she showed us this nuanced way of scoring and this kind of way of writing music. You're not telling people how to feel, but you're kind of scoring from the perspective of the emotions of the people who are telling the story. So that class was great, and Ruth was awesome.
Leah Roseman:
And you studied jazz and piano with Steven Hunt?
Kara Talve:
Yeah, that's right.
Leah Roseman:
So had you done jazz before you got into Berklee because you had this classical background?
Kara Talve:
Yeah. So funny enough, I had this classical background, but my dad is a musician. And he always played me jazz and fusion, and his music is very fusiony. He hates when I say that, but it is.
Anže Rozman:
I'm going to tell him.
Kara Talve:
Don't tell him. So I grew up listening to Allan Holdsworth and Bill Evans, and I just loved all that stuff. So I was really amazed when Steve Hunt was assigned to me as my piano teacher because he obviously played with Allan for many years, so it was like, "Whoa, it's so weird." I didn't apply to work. I didn't even know that he was working there. So I learned all my jazz harmony from Steve, and it's a big part of my musical vocabulary now.
Leah Roseman:
I know how busy you are as a composer, but do you have time to just sit down and play piano for fun?
Kara Talve:
No.
Leah Roseman:
No?
Kara Talve:
Not really. No, sadly, I've kind of stopped playing. Once in a while, if I have a project loading, I'm like, "Okay, let me see if I can still play Waltz for Debbie." And usually I get to a certain point. I'm like, "Now I've forgotten the rest." But it comes back to you. It's in there somewhere.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. And Anže, there's something you said in passing that really touched me, how your teacher in Slovenia said that you'd bring shame because they didn't feel like your standards were high enough. I mean, we run into this in the classical world, this kind of attitude. Was there a fair amount of that kind of attitude and the conservatory system growing up?
Anže Rozman:
It's very interesting how my perspectives on my life... And I think everyone goes through this. You go through life, and then you change your perspectives on your past. You say, "Oh, at that point I felt like this. But if I look back at me, how didn't I feel a complete opposite feeling?" So we were recently talking with Kara about this subject, and I told her this story. I don't know. I think it was this year at some point. And Kara was like, "How didn't you just quit?" I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you said something. "How didn't that just destroy you?" And then I thought, "Yeah, how didn't it?"
And I guess I was so used to, for about 10 years, to that point, most people laughing at my music and laughing at what I was doing, apart from my mom and my brother and a few close friends maybe. But I just had that passion that I wanted to do this. And as you said, in the classical world, there is this... What would be the right word? Academic notion that if you are a composer, you have to be this crazy, super talented person like Beethoven or Mozart, or everyone hears the stories. Beethoven wrote his last two symphonies almost deaf or completely deaf. And Stravinsky could play, sight-read any orchestral score on the piano, and they were all amazing pianists or violinists.
And then I sucked at solfeggio, absolutely atrocious at piano. Even if I practiced four hours a day, I still sucked, and I'm still incapable of playing anything without making a mistake. The only thing that I was really good at, I mean, really good at... I wouldn't say really good at, but that I hoped I was good at, was writing music. And that eventually then came through. So again, for the younger listeners, you have to have that passion and drive and not letting the negativity thrown at you get to you, but listen to yourself and get close with the people that nurture that energy that you have.
Because I was lucky that I had my mom and my brother and my dad that the more my career went on, supported me, and especially then my mentor, Jani Golob, who was my composition teacher. I came with my music to him before I applied for the composition program, and he heard something in my music. So for me, it was like, "Oh, well, if he likes my music and my piano teacher just thinks that I'm complete crap," I was like, "I don't care." So after she said that, I picked up my sheet music, and I said, "All right. Bye. See you at the exams." And I went to my my primary school piano teacher. Sorry if I'm going a bit off the cuff here.
Leah Roseman:
I think this stuff's really important to talk about. And I think in the classical world, unfortunately, a lot of people quit. Or if they don't, there's a huge attrition rate because of all the pressure, the perfectionism, the lack of opportunity. And then people who loved music as children don't play it as amateurs, which I find so sad. There's so much opportunity. They can be playing chamber music, orchestra, be in bands, write music, but that doesn't tend to happen as much as it should compared to the amount of people who study music as children. Do you have any ideas about that?
Anže Rozman:
If I understood you correctly that not many people that learn piano or an instrument have it as a hobby later on in life? Is that what you're kind of...
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I know a lot of people do, but I wonder about the percentage of those people.
Anže Rozman:
Well, at least in Slovenia, it's absolutely crazy how much music is embedded into culture. It's very centralized now, Slovenia, that it's mostly, everything happens in Ljubljana and then Maribor and Koper. But there's villages scattered everywhere, and every village has a church, and every church has a choir, and every village usually has a woodwind or I mean a brass band. So everyone plays. If you're going to go anywhere in Slovenia, almost everyone's going to have an accordion at home or a guitar. So it's very enrooted into our culture. So at least in Slovenia, I don't think that's the case. I have a friend that's a farmer, but he also sings in a choir.
Leah Roseman:
That's really great to hear. What do you think, Kara, in terms of American culture? Do you think it's the same?
Kara Talve:
I don't know. I didn't know so many classical musicians. I will say that I hated my classical piano lessons. It was really difficult for me to meet the standard of the sight-reading thing. That was a big issue for me. And I tried, and I pleaded with my parents, "Can I not do this? I hate playing the piano." But my teacher kept saying, "No, there's too much potential. You really shouldn't let her quit." And she knew that I was going home and learning Debussy by ear. I would go home on YouTube, and I'm like, "Clair De Lune, sure."
And I would just listen to it and learn how to play it because that's what I did with my dad. He would play these cluster chords, and he'd be like, "Go to the piano and tell me which notes that I just played." And I would find them. This is the thing that we did. So she knew that I was doing that, and she wanted me to learn how to sight-read. So she would tell me, "I am not going to tell you the name of this piece." She would rip off the top, and she's like, "Now you have to learn how to play it." And I had no means of finding out what it was.
Anže Rozman:
I didn't know that story.
Kara Talve:
This was so annoying to me. Yes.
Anže Rozman:
Wow. I've never heard this part. This is interesting.
Kara Talve:
I would go to my lesson, and I would pretend I'm reading it. And she's like, "I know you're not reading it, and I know that you went home and you listened to this and you learned how to play it by ear." So she was annoyed. I was annoyed. It's not the best memory, but at least now I have this really spectacular ear training. It really comes in handy, when I have to transcribe a song for The Simpsons.
Anže Rozman:
Kara reminds me of my professor sometimes, Jani Golob, who I studied with, because I would play him my music. He would never say anything while the music was playing. And then at the end, he was like, "Yeah, that's great, but you have a wrong note at bar 49." And Kara does the same. She listens to what I do, and she's like, "You have a wrong note, bar 50." And I was like, "No, I don't." And then she's always right.
Kara Talve:
Every time.
Anže Rozman:
Always. And my professor was always right as well.
Leah Roseman:
I find this so interesting about your training in terms of your fabulous ear, and I talk to so many musicians from different backgrounds. And some people play purely by ear, and they never learn to read music, and they have very interesting careers. And there's so many different paths people can take. And that's one of the reasons I put so much into this podcast is just to show people there's so much to a life of music. There's so many different ways you can go, and there's so much different kind of music. So it's incredible hearing your personal stories. Well, thank you so much for this conversation today. It was really inspiring, and it's wonderful to meet you both.
Kara Talve:
Wonderful to meet you too.
Anže Rozman:
Leah, right? Did I ? I'm so sorry.
Kara Talve:
Leah. Leah.
Anže Rozman:
Leah. I think it was, for me personally, one of my favorite interviews or podcasts that we had. And it all came down to you because you are so well-prepared.
Kara Talve:
Yeah, I don't think we've ever been on one where... I mean, you asked me about my grandma, and I was like, "What?" Nobody has ever asked me that on an interview before.
Anže Rozman:
Yeah, it's very, very, very, very nice when the reporters do the research. It just shows an appreciation of everyone's time. And thank you so much for your efforts. It means a lot to us.
Kara Talve:
Yeah, thank you.
Leah Roseman:
Thanks for your kind words. I appreciate it. So thanks so much.
I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Thanks for following the series on your favorite podcast player and sharing your favorite episodes with your friends, all of which help find new listeners. I have lots more episodes coming in this season 3 with a fascinating diversity of musicians and their stories and music. Have a great week. I'm an independent podcaster, and I really do need my listeners' help. Please consider buying me a coffee. The link to my Ko-fi page is in the description. Every dollar helps me cover the costs of this huge project. Thanks so much.
