VIFF Amp 2024

Renowned worldwide as A. R. Rahman, he stands as an iconic figure known for redefining Indian film and contemporary music. His music has played an integral role in blockbuster movies such as Roja, Bombay, Dil Se, Taal, Lagaan, Vandemataram, Jodhaa Akbar, Ponniyin Selvan (I & II), Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, and countless more. Today, Rahman continues to inspire and nurture new talent through initiatives such as the ‘all-women Firdaus Orchestra,’ supported by UAE Excellency Reem Al Hashimy, and the A. R. Rahman Foundation, which aims to provide underprivileged children with music education. A. R. Rahman’s extraordinary journey continues to be a testament to his boundless creativity and unwavering commitment to the world of music and beyond.

Adrian is known for his inventive, concept-driven approaches, including the score for single-take, split screen feature Last Call (recorded live, also in a single take), The Scarehouse (NBC Universal) which used sounds from its haunted attraction set, Shudder Original The Strings with its all-choir score, and Timebox, which restricted him to “found sounds” including power saws and broken pianos. The 3-time Canadian Screen Award nominee’s television credits include Secret Nazi Ruins, Secret Societies: In The Shadows, themes for Daily Planet, The CFL and International Hockey. Adrian is the Chair of the Screen Composers Guild of Canada and an advocate of the value of screen music and the importance of the filmmaker/composer relationship.

Alex began his musical training at an early age with violin lessons. Adding jazz bass into the mix in high school and switching to viola at university where he studied composition and conducting. After university Alex began a career as an orchestra librarian in Kitchener-Waterloo. Several years later Alex moved to Vancouver and became Assistant Librarian at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. His roles at VSO evolved over the years focusing more on digital performances, concert production and composing/arranging for the VSO and other performing arts organizations in town. Alex has presented on subjects regarding copyist work, part preparation and even bowings at conferences in Berlin, Miami, Vancouver and Montreal. Alex founded Aseosa Productions which became the home of his musical pursuits.

Amani “Burt Blackarach” Smith is a distinguished music expert, recognized for his dual roles as a music supervisor and composer in film and TV. His compositions have graced projects for industry giants like James Cameron and Ryan Murphy. Burt’s work as a music supervisor has earned him award nominations, including 2024 Emmy-nominated Stamped From The Beginning, and Genius: MLK/X. As a producer, he’s collaborated with iconic artists such as Aerosmith, Method Man, and Public Enemy. A skilled turntablist, Burt has performed globally, opening for legends like Prince and Jay Z. He owns Salamani Music, one of the first Black-owned publishing companies, founded by his songwriting parents in 1971. Its music has been sampled by artists including Etta James, Chaka Khan, J Dilla, A$AP Rocky.

Damon Tedesco as the Recording Engineer and Scoring Mixer for the CFA Program in 2023. For the last 25 years, Damon has specialized in recording music for film and television. A member of the Television Academy, he has recorded and mixed music for hundreds of commercials, TV shows, films, and documentaries. He is currently the scoring mixer for Family Guy and American Dad, and has recently worked on Lost City and Hocus Pocus 2 and Inside Out 2.

Dave Porter is a Los Angeles based composer for film and television. He studied classical and electronic music composition under John Yannelli.

Dave is perhaps best known for his enduring creative relationship with one of Hollywood’s most respected figures – Vince Gilligan. Since the remarkable pilot episode of Breaking Bad in 2007, Dave has written the original music for all of Gilligan’s projects, including Better Call Saul and El Camino. Other credits include Marvel’s Echo, James Franco’s The Disaster Artist, the groundbreaking Starz series Hightown, AMC’s boundary-defying series Preacher, and over 200 episodes of the James Spader crime thriller The Blacklist.

Dave has twice been awarded ASCAP’s Composer’s Choice Award for Best Television Composer.

During Gavin’s time at the Vapor Music Group, a full-service audio house with facilities in both Toronto & Vancouver, his business development skills have been utilized to enable Vapor Music to build an ever-growing Long Form division which has been providing ground breaking audio expertise across many platforms ranging from award winning animated series & specials; including Netflix’s Hilda and Apple TV+’s Snoopy Presents; Lucy’s School; to prime time drama series, such as Global TV’s Robyn Hood; for which, along with his colleagues Heather Gardner & Telan Wong, he won the award for Best Sync – Scene, Episodic Series at this year’s Guild of Music Supervisors’ Canadian Sync Awards.

Dr. Ifunanya Nweke, Ed.D. is an award-nominated Empowerment Engineer and the foremost advocate at the intersection of Entertainment, Education, Workforce Development and Disability Advocacy. Dr. Nweke is the Founder and Executive Director of an innovative and award-winning 501c3 nonprofit organization called Jazz Hands For Autism that provides tech-enabled avenues for success for neurodivergent musicians. Dr. Nweke is also a singer-songwriter, a published author of a self-help book, 20+ Lessons From My 20s and was talent orchestrator for the historical Hollywood Bowl show headlined by Grammy award-winning artist Burna Boy in October 2021.

Being a Michigan native, it’s no surprise that Jennifer Reeve cut her teeth in Music Supervision working as an Executive Producer for auto advertising. Picking temp tracks for ads started a journey that led Jennifer to England, where she earned a Master’s Degree in Music for Film at Leeds University, before ultimately making the move to LA and joining the team at Neophonic Music & Media.

In the 21 years since, Jennifer has become an invaluable part of Neophonic, supervising, consulting and sharing her musicology expertise with a myriad of clients, including HBO, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, Amazon, Netflix and National Geographic.

Her latest projects include: The Night Agent (Netflix), S.W.A.T. (CBS), and White House Plumbers (HBO).

HMMA award-winning composer John Frizzell began his musical journey singing opera before studying jazz at USC. Early collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto and James Newton Howard lead to the development of his own career with films such as Alien Resurrection, Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, and Office Space. His streaming and TV credits include The Following and Space Force. His work with Mike Judge includes the upcoming reboot of King of the Hill. In 2025, he will score the new Netflix series The Waterfront from Scream creator Kevin Williamson. Diagnosed with ASD Level 1 as an adult in 2021, Frizzell has become an advocate for creating more employment opportunities for people on the spectrum.

Jojo Villanueva is Senior Vice President of Music Creative Affairs at Sony Pictures Entertainment, where he oversees music for feature-length films across various studios within SPE’s Motion Picture Group. Before his current role, Jojo was Head of Film and Creative at Format Entertainment, where he provided innovative music solutions for motion pictures, TV shows, and global brands.

Jojo’s talents in music supervision are highlighted by his work on the animated musical film Sing, for which he earned a Hollywood Music In Media Award. He is also credited on the critically acclaimed biopic Straight Outta Compton. As a gay Filipino-American, Jojo is deeply focused on providing the representation he once sought coming up in the industry, striving to pave the way for future generations.

Emmy-nominated Music Supervisor Maggie Phillips has lent her expertise to the creation of some of television and films’ most unique sounds. Phillips is the Music Supervisor on FX’s Fargo and Shōgun; HBO Max’s Our Flag Means Death; Netflix’s All the Light We Cannot See; Apple TV+’s The Big Door Prize and Shining Girls; and Amazon Prime’s Bosch: Legacy and Upload. Notable other credits include Hulu’s The Great and Normal People; Sam Esmail’s psychological thriller Leave the World Behind; Amazon Prime’s adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s best-selling novel Red, White & Royal Blue; HBO Max’s Somebody Somewhere; and more. Upcoming projects include Amazon Prime’s Blade Runner: 2099; FX’s Alien; Hulu’s final season of The Handmaid’s Tale and Searchlight’s The Roses.

Mark Korven is a Toronto-based composer for film and television. He is best known for his work on the 2015 period Horror film The Witch. He also scored Egger’s follow-up The Lighthouse, which won the Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Episodic television credits include Amazon’s Them, the #1 science fiction series The Peripheral, and Ridley Scott’s The Terror: Infamy. Director Scott Derrickson chose Korven to score his feature film The Black Phone, which earned $161 million at the box office on it’s $18 million budget. Most recently he scored The First Omen for 20th Century Studios. Korven is also a multi-instrumentalist specializing in world music, and together with Tony Duggan-Smith developed the notorious horror musical instrument The Apprehension Engine.

Michelle Sudduth is a composer and songwriter, classically-trained pianist, music educator and performer.

In Los Angeles, Michelle worked in film as a producer’s assistant, familiarizing herself with all aspects of filmmaking both on and off set for a handful of studio films. Michelle credits UCLA’s Film Scoring program with equipping her with necessary technical skills and has since enjoyed composing for films, both feature length and short, audio dramas, and video games. In 2022, she was happy to work on the live scoring sessions as a booth reader for Animaniacs, Season 3. In 2023, Michelle was happy to be in a small cohort for an inaugural MTV/Paramount composer initiative, to work with Budapest Scoring, and continue expand into the world of sync, producing scores, and expanding her skills and team as a composer in Los Angeles.

Three-time Emmy-nominated Composer, Miriam Cutler has an extensive background scoring for independent film & TV projects. She has co-produced two Grammy-nominated live jazz albums on PolyGram/Verve for Joe Williams, and albums for Nina Simone, Shirley Horn, and Marlena Shaw as well as independently released albums of her own songs and soundtracks. She recently received a Grammy for her participation in Woman Warriors, Voices of Change. She co-founded The Alliance for Women Film Composers, served on the Executive Committee of the Music Branch TV Academy, and the Executive Committee for the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and is proud to be part of the USC Cinema/US State Department American Film Showcase, Artist to Artist Diplomacy around the world.

Natasha Duprey is an award-winning music supervisor based in Vancouver who has supervised thousands of hours of episodic television including the series The L Word (Showtime), and Tiny Pretty Things (Netflix). Natasha has recently completed the Nicholas Cage horror film Longlegs, Champions starring Woody Harrelson, Let the Right One In (Showtime), Allegiance (CBC) and the fourth and final season of Snowpiercer (TNT). She is currently working on the second season of My Life With the Walter Boys (Netflix), Wild Cards (The CW), Alert: Missing Person’s Unit (Fox), Murder in a Small Town (Fox), Family Law (Global/ The CW), Animal Control (Fox) and the A-24 feature Heretic starring Hugh Grant. Natasha is also VP of the Guild of Music Supervisors Canada.

Seth Fairchild is the Executive Director of Culture for the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Seth holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and marketing from Southeastern Oklahoma State University, where he was actively involved in the Native American Council, advocating for Native issues and initiatives. He recently earned an MBA in Organizational Leadership from Oklahoma Christian University. Seth has spoken at many engagements worldwide, including keynote addresses at the United Nations in New York, a TED talk, and a NextGen talk. He is committed to community leadership, having served on the boards of the Texoma Health Foundation, Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits, and Imagine Durant. He was appointed by the Governor to serve on the advisory board of the Oklahoma Nonprofit Council.

An early passion for music led to graduation from the Arts and Entertainment Management program at Capilano University, and that in turn granted invaluable opportunities to work with The Song Rep and Nettwerk Music Group. Involved in both music publishing and label duties, Sian received a well-rounded understanding of the music industry from Nettwerk, while in turn applying knowledge of music clearance at The Song Rep. She later left the music admin world behind to pursue her passion for Music Supervision exclusively now for over a decade.

Sydney Freeland is an Emmy-nominated writer, director, and producer known for her work across film and television that centers on marginalized characters. Freeland’s upcoming film Rez Ball, which she directed, executive produced, and co-wrote with Sterlin Harjo, premieres at TIFF in September before launching on Netflix. She recently directed and executive produced Marvel’s limited series Echo, which debuted at number one on Disney+ and Hulu in January 2024. Her additional TV work includes Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, P-Valley, and Reservation Dogs. Freeland’s previous films include Drunktown’s Finest and Deidra and Laney Rob a Train, which both premiered at Sundance.

Tarik Bradford is the Owner and Founder of Dahomey Music Enterprises a Los Angeles-based 3rd-party music licensing and publishing company that represents a variety of record labels, publishers, distributors and independent artists for placements in the world of TV, Film, Advertising, Video Games, Promos and Trailers.

Tarik is a longtime music industry veteran with over 25 years of experience working at companies such as Virgin Music, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Enterprises and EMI Music Publishing prior to starting Dahomey Music. Clients include Reach Music (Public Enemy, Nate Dogg, Common, John Mayer), Bridgeport Music (George Clinton, Funkadelic, The Clark Sisters, Ohio Players) and CD Baby.

Valerie Biggin is a Music Business veteran with over 30 years’ experience in recording, orchestral score coordination, music supervision and licensing.
Still very active in the local Music community you will find her either at the studio or in a club listening to the newest, latest, greatest — music is her passion!
Valerie started her career as an aspiring recording engineer but ended up as the President/Studio Manager for Mushroom Studios in Vancouver for over 13 years.

In late 2009, Valerie opened The Song Rep., a music placement agency who, in a very short time, placed music in MTV Canada, FOX Sports and Slice Networks, Hallmark, A&E, and independent films. Current projects: Netflix series Sweet Magnolias in Season 4 , feature film for TOEI animation, and Brat Pack Documentary.

Zhara Astra is a film and television writer, producer, international public speaker, as well as a professor at ASU where she developed the first university course in the world on understanding neurodivergent women.

After discovering in adulthood that she was on the spectrum, Zhara set out on a mission to change the way women are viewed, treated, and diagnosed in the medical world while also aiming to help women and girls better understand their own brains.

With her expertise in this field, Zhara recently produced and hosted two documentary films on autism and ADHD where she interviews the top experts,
researchers, doctors, and neuroscientists in the world. Understanding Autism is out on PBS right now and ADHD: Wired Differently is set to be released later this year.