Neoclassical Suite is a column that will present 7 recent, distinctive tracks of the neoclassical-modern classical-contemporary -and beyond!- music field. 

The Players

David Marlow

(neoclassical, cinematic)

British / German musician, conductor, pianist and composer David Marlow loves to blur the lines between different genres and break down boundaries between different musical worlds. Combining elements of classical music with electronic and synth sounds he creates hybrid atmospheric instrumental soundscapes that are sometimes branded “neoclassical” or “contemporary classical”. Born to British parents he grew up in Germany, learning the piano and singing in choirs throughout his childhood. He trained as a classical conductor and started a performing career that led him to orchestras throughout Europe. Working as musical assistant to Andris Nelsons at the Bayreuth Festival for many years he deepened his insights into the music of Richard Wagner who can be said, amongst many other things, to be the grandfather of film music. Having always loved the world of film David Marlow worked on the biopic Louis van Beethoven as music supervisor and musical director. He loves to tell stories with his music and create ambient cinematic musical images, often collaborating with photographer Christian Palm @grauwertartist. He is based in Cologne (Germany) and at Studio Floisdorf, a place for creativity in the countryside.

Felix Rösch

(neoclassical, contemporary music)

Berlin-based composer Felix Rösch blends his years of experience as a classical composer and his passion for experimental electronic music into colorful, carefully constructed arrangements and contemplative ambiences.

His music is inspired by contemporary classical composers like John Adams, Henryk Górecki, and Anders Hillborg as well as artists like Rival Consoles, Max Richter and Ben Frost.

Over the past ten years, his orchestral compositions have frequently been performed and recorded by world-renowned orchestras like the German Film Orchestra Babelsberg and the WDR Symphony Orchestra & Choir. He has won several awards and scholarships and his music can be heard in countless theater performances, audiobook soundtracks, and film scores.

Garry DW Judd

(neoclassical, solo piano)

Garry Judd is a contemporary classical composer whose music is driven by such diverse influences as the English Experimentalists, Erik Satie and Percy Grainger. His music has been played on BBC Radio 3, ClassicFM, and other broadcasters in the USA, Germany and France, by such performers as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Leslie Howard and Courtney Pine.

Anne Chmelewsky

(neoclassical, epic music)

Born into a peripatetic family with French parents of Polish-Russian descent, Anne Chmelewsky moved to Poland when she was five years old. Although not a musical family, the house they lived in had a piano and Anne was immediately drawn to it, copying tunes she had heard on the TV and radio by ear, before starting to compose her own small pieces. She quickly realised that she had an excellent memory for music and was good at improvising, yet in her lessons she was far less interested in learning core repertoire by rote. It was when she started watching films that she first encountered orchestral music, becoming instantly and forever enthralled by the scores to blockbusters such as ‘Indiana Jones’, ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Back to the Future’. However, a setback to Anne’s musical ambitions came when she shared her compositions with her music teacher, who told her in emphatic terms that composing was “not a job for girls”. Disappointed, she put her ambitions on hold.

Anne relocated to England at the age of fourteen and having set aside her dream of working as a composer, she instead focused on her other love, the Classics. She studied Latin and Ancient Greek at school, as well as an A-level in music. In a final hopeful throw of the dice, she applied to study at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and was accepted with an unconditional offer. She completed BMus in Composition between 2002-2006, followed by a Masters Degree in Composition for Screen from 2006-2007 at the Royal College of Music. Anne financed her studies through full-time work as, among other things, a lifeguard, bartender, waitress, opera subtitler, maths tutor, computer salesperson and piano teacher. When Anne recounts how many different jobs she held down over the course of her studies in order to support her education, it is clear how focused and single-minded she was in pursuit of her goals.

Never one to take the easy route, at the same time as working and studying, Anne also launched herself into an ambitious range of new projects for stage and screen. In 2006, she created an operatic version of the TV hit ‘The Office’ and following a chance meeting in the street with the show’s co-writer and co-director, Stephen Merchant, excerpts of the piece were featured on the BBC. This would also lead to a close collaboration with Ricky Gervais: Anne later wrote and arranged the music for his 2014 Netflix series ‘Derek’. Her second operatic venture in 2012 was a one-woman operetta, ‘The Looking Screen’, taking a wry look at the perils of online dating and described by ‘What’s On Stage’ as “Quick-witted” with a “delightfully Debussyan score”. This was followed in 2017 by another one-woman show, ‘Pygmalion 2.0’, a gender-reversal of the classical poem told through the lens of cutting-edge A.I. More recently, Anne wrote the score for BAFTA Award-winning director Amma Asante’s feature film ‘Where Hands Touch’, for which she was nominated for the prestigious ‘Discovery of the Year’ award at the 2019 World Soundtrack Awards.

Anne Chmelewsky often works in a fragmentary way, hoarding away small sections of melodies and scraps of musical phrases, turning them over in her mind whilst giving them chance to breathe and mature until they suddenly break free and crystallise into something she can commit to paper. Her own musical heroes include soundtrack composers Terence Blanchard, Wendy Carlos, Bernard Herrmann, Alan Silvestri, Shirley Walker and John Williams alongside classical composers Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Steve Reich and Igor Stravinsky.

Kid Kin

(neoclassical, electronica)

Kid Kin is the moniker of producer Peter Lloyd from Oxford, England. In 2020 he collaborated with The Bobo to release the single “Sprinter (At Last)” which made the BBC Introducing Hot List. On 29th April 2021 they followed it up with their new single “Control”.

Kid Kin has toured the UK and supported luminaries such as Ulrich Schnauss, Public Service Broadcasting, and Haiku Salut.

Sharon Ruchman

(neoclassical, tango)

American composer, pianist and violist, Sharon Ruchman began her musical journey when she took up piano at the age of eight, later receiving a Bachelor of Music from New England Conservatory of Music and a Master of Music from Yale School of Music. Her myriad accomplishments include the production of six CDs, including original classical music for solo instrumentation and chamber ensembles.

In 2019, Ruchman founded SONORO, a musical ensemble at the forefront of contemporary music performance. The group offers a playful and romantic mix of classical, jazz and Latin through a variety of flexible instrumentation to include piano, flute, saxophone, viola, cello, bass and percussion. Original work, composed by Ruchman and produced by Marc Wager Weisgal, is stretching boundaries of contemporary rhythms, creating a unique musical blend. There’s an element of fun and exploration in the music, showcasing the personalities and talents of the group’s highly skilled musicians.

Biggi Hilmars

(neoclassical, cinematic)

Iceland’s Biggi Hilmars is a distinguished artist and film composer, who’s award-winning work has been used by Nat Geo, Channel 4 & BBC. Biggi is now releasing ‘Hope Grows’, a composition that is featured in the YouTube video of The Film That Grows Coral, an initiative launched by the SHEBA® brand and parent company Mars Inc. as part of their recently launched coral restoration project – SHEBA Hope Reef. Every view of the film generates advertising money that will be invested in coral reef restoration by The Nature Conservancy, the project’s campaign partner.

The Music

Christos Doukakis