PERSONAL
BIOGRAPHY
Composer
Siddhartha Barnhoorn got into music when he was 17 years old. His first
instrument was an old electric guitar. He learned to play by himself but
playing along with the music of bands
like Camel, Pink Floyd and Blind Guardian. After a year he started composing
his own music using the guitar as his main instrument. In the first few
years the main styles he composed in were rock and metal mixed
with orchestral elements.
He took a great
interest in working with samples. With these samples he could create the
sound of an orchestra. His main influences came from bands like Camel, Pink
Floyd, Blind Guardian but also filmcomposers like John Williams, James
Horner, Jerry Goldsmith and more.
Having
worked with samples for a while, Sid composed his first concert piece in
2003: "Space Suite - The Undiscovered Journey". This was
his first big epic orchestral piece which had a film
music feel to it. After hearing a lot of comments about his music sounding
like film and game music, he started thinking about actually composing for
film. A friend of his got him into contact with an animator and gave him the
idea to study music in Hilversum.
In
2004 Sid started his studies of Composition in Context, at the Utrecht
School of the Arts, Faculty of Art, Media & Design in Hilversum. In
August 2008 Sid graduates with the title, Master of Composition in Context.
In
the early years of his studies Sid was confronted with various new ways of
composing and various music that was new to him, encountering electronic
soundscapes, counterpoint, the Twelve-Tone System, the polytonal /
contemporary techniques of Stravinski, Ligeti and Bartok, the beautiful
sound of the Javanese Gamelan, African polyrhythmic music and medieval,
other ethnic music and renaissance vocal music. The music of György Ligeti
made a great impact on him even before he started his study. Ligeti’s
instrumental soundscapes inspired Sid to compose very atonal music, using
clusters. Experimenting with these techniques gave him a wider knowledge of
form, structure and sonic detail. His concertwork can be described as
evolving piece of music.
Sid
took a great interest in ethnic music, especially traditional Japanese
music. Through this music he decided to learn the shakuhachi, the Japanese
bamboo flute. He took lessons from shakuhachi teacher and musician Kees
Kort. Aside from the shakuhachi, Sid also took interest in various other
instruments like the Armenian Duduk, the bouzouki (8-string lute), Turkish
Ney and Soprano Sax to name a few.
Aside
from composing for film and other media, Sid also composes his own
(prog)rock albums and works in collaboration with other musicians and
composers. His rock albums are usually mixed with electronica, orchestral
and ethnic elements.
PROFESSIONAL
BIO
In
2004 Sid scored his first short film “Temple Tumble” by Niels
Philipsen. After that he scored a number of short films that same year, one
of which made it on national television (Netherlands). One of the most
important projects came in 2005, when Sid got in contact with the
award-winning director Jeremy Haccoun to score his shortfilm, "Paradox".
After this Sid was introduced to conductor Lex Veelo of the Hofstads Jeugd
Orkest, the oldest Youth Orchestra in the world. He got commissioned to
write a concertpiece for them to perform at the National Youth Orchestra
Contest. The concertpiece is called "Overture to the Snow Goose".
2006
was one of the busiest years for Sid, scoring up to fourteen short films
aside from trailers, commercials and school projects. One of those short
films, “Heart’s Atlantis” by Drew MacDonald, was nominated for
best score in Australia. He took on a lot of different genres and styles,
ranging from drama to horror, thriller/suspense to adventure to comedy to
sci-fi / experimental film. His skills evolved and grew by doing all these
various films, as did his knowledge of the business.
With dear regards,
Siddhartha Barnhoorn