VIFF Amp and the VSO Present: Live Score Showcase

Beryl Rosenblum is an LA-based composer for the screen and stage, as well as an award-winning classical pianist. Having played such an important role in her life, the piano features heavily in her music, and therefore contributes greatly to her cinematic melodies and innate ability to write lyrical themes.

Beryl has recorded her work with orchestras and chamber ensembles in notable recording studios such as Fox Newman Scoring Stage (Los Angeles, California) La Seine Musicale (Boulogne-Billancourt, France) FAMES Project (Skopje, Macedonia) and Chicago Recording Company (Chicago, Illinois.)

Originally from Montclair, New Jersey, Beryl attended Skidmore College as a Filene Music Scholar for classical piano. She later went on to study film scoring in Paris, France at the Ecole Normale de Musique – Alfred Cortot with Béatrice Thiriet. In 2022, she received an MFA in Film Scoring at Columbia College, Chicago.

Mina Samy is a highly acclaimed composer and music producer recognized for his diverse portfolio spanning various media, including film, television, theater, exhibitions, and musical production for artists and bands. His exceptional musical talent has garnered recognition from renowned global organizations such as UNICEF, the WHO, BOSCH, and the governments of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, who have commissioned his work.

Mina’s compositions have achieved remarkable acclaim, earning him a Silver Medal of Outstanding Achievement in Composition at the prestigious Global Music Awards. Furthermore, he stood out among a field of over 700 composers in the 2023 Call for Score competition, organized worldwide by the European Recording Orchestra, where he was selected as one of the top 5 composers.

He completed his education with distinction, ranking at the pinnacle of his class in Composition For Screen at the esteemed Royal College of Music in London. His remarkable achievements during his master’s program earned him the prestigious Joseph Horovitz Award.

Bijan Olia has written the music for the feature romantic comedy Better Half as well as additional music for the Freeform TV Series Siren, Warner Brothers’ Lego DC Superheroes: Brain Drain, and the virtual reality video game Resident Evil VII Biohazard. In 2017 he was selected as a fellow for the Sundance Institute Composers Lab. As a producer/songwriter his music was featured in the soundtrack for Paramount Pictures’ 80 for Brady. He’s collaborated with Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter J. Hoard, and co-founded Foam Collective, a songwriting and record production team.

Bijan also remains active in writing music for the concert hall, having completed commissions by the Oak Tree Group for Streicher, Tasti et Bizarreries (Piano Quartet with toy piano and melodica) and the Contemporary Performance Collective of Los Angeles for Four One Oh! (a piece for two harps). Away from the joys of music, Bijan enjoys cheering for the Boston Red Sox and fantasizing about becoming the next Jonathan Gold, through his Los Angeles food travels.

Shao Jean Sim is a Singaporean composer, songwriter, and producer based in Los Angeles.

As a composer, her music has been heard on networks such as SKY, Netflix, MTV, and Discovery Channel. She has worked in the music department on various films and shows as orchestrator and score technical engineer. Beyond her work in the film and television industry, she has also written music for theater, commercials, and ventured into video games scoring.

A Berklee College of Music alumni, she majored in Contemporary Music & Production, and Professional Music. She recently obtained her masters from the USC Thornton Screen Scoring Program. Shao Jean lends her thoughtful and imaginative soundscape, and honest writing to every project she works on.

DeAndre James Allen-Toole is a Los Angeles-based composer best known for his original score to Julian Higgins’ neo-Western feature God’s Country—starring Thandiwe Newton. First showing as a 2022 Sundance Film Festival Premieres selection ahead of its theatrical release, God’s Country received widespread critical acclaim for many aspects, including DeAndre’s score.

Since the launch of his career, DeAndre has enjoyed writing music for diverse media independently and under the employment of many senior composers in Los Angeles. Among his accomplishments, DeAndre is a Sundance Institute Film Music & Sound Design Lab alum, a Sundance Institute Interdisciplinary Program grantee, a Reel Change Film Fund grantee, an ASCAP Foundation Michelle & Dean Kay Award recipient, a nominee for the David Raksin Award for Emerging Talent during the 4th SCL Awards, and most recently, a selected composer for the Vancouver International Film Festival’s inaugural Amp Composer Filmmaker Accelerator Program. He has also received past recognition as a Television Academy Foundation Summer Internship awardee, a Game Audio Network Guild Scholar, and a Columbia College Chicago Graduate Merit Award recipient.

Shirley Song is an Australian born Chinese composer who resides in the sunny city of Los Angeles. She and her writing partner (good friend/partner in crime), Jina Hyojin An are the composers for the upcoming Netflix TV show, Exploding Kittens, based on the popular party card game of the same title; Amazon Prime’s upcoming film Five Blind Dates; the TV show spin off of To All the Boys film series, XO, Kitty (2023); and the Netflix Romantic comedy A Tourist’s Guide to Love (2023). The duo also composed music for the 2021 Christmas Netflix film Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star, featuring Vanessa Hudgens.

Shirley has also contributed additional music to an array of TV shows and films, including the HBO Max TV show Julia, based on the life of renowned chef Julia Childs; the Disney Junior show Mira, Royal Detective; the second season of the CBS series Strange Angel; the Dreamworks/Netflix animations Tales of Arcadia: 3Below, Wizards and Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans, created by Guillermo Del Toro.

Born and raised just outside of Philadelphia, PA, Elizabeth P.W. is a composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer with a passion for storytelling through music. Elizabeth weaves together her love of folk music with modern cinematic elements to create evocative and intimate scores for film and tv, and songs that tell compelling stories through unique soundscapes. Her scores have premiered in films at the Tribeca Film Festival, Hollyshorts, DOC NYC as well as in films on Apple TV+, Amazon, The New Yorker and more. She has scored films that received recognition as Student Academy Award Winners and NAACP Image Award Nominees. Elizabeth is a recipient of the 2020 – 2021 Alan Menken Scholarship and has a Master’s degree in Music Theory and Composition from NYU. Her newly released second studio album, The Company You Keep, is available now on all streaming platforms. Her first single off the new album, Brooklyn, was a semi-finalist in the 2022 International Songwriting Competition. Elizabeth’s current projects involve both scoring and songwriting for feature films. She maintains an active career as a trombone player and music educator. Elizabeth is Brooklyn-based and is obsessed with her adorable dog, Schuyler.

Gabriella is a composer, pianist, and lyricist, newly based in West L.A. Some of her recent film highlights include Dear Yeda (Lisboa Indie Film Festival, El Encuentro: The Latino Film Experience, All the Moves International Film Festival, etc), Sprout (Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation, and Technology, Animaze Montreal International Animation Film Festival), and Jalopy (Garden Route International Film Festival, Best Student Film at Denali Film Festival). Coming up on the horizon are short films such as Fern (Mary Tilden and Katherine Bourne-Taylor) and projects from Columbia University.

Gabriella completed her Masters in Music Composition: Screen-Scoring at NYU (2023). She holds a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from the University of Miami. In addition to her classical background, Gabriella’s work is influenced by her six years spent in the Chicago theater and comedy world (The Second City, iO Chicago). During that time, she co-wrote and produced the award-winning Lucky: A Musical (“Best Lyrics” and “Most Promising,” Chicago Musical Theatre Festival 2019). Other stage works include She’s Loud and He’s Quiet (The Elysian) and Grown Up Orphan Annie (Edinburgh and Hollywood Fringe Festivals).

Felipe Téllez is a Colombian-Canadian, BIPOC media composer. Recently he composed on the Canadian-Nigerian production Orah, which was selected for TIFF 2023 and the film US-Canadian Tomorrow, which recently premiered in California’s Cinequest Festival 2023. Felipe’s unique style merges modern electronics, traditional folk from Colombia, and a classical symphonic approach. Recently he orchestrated for Hubert Davis’ award-winning documentary Black Ice, and did music copying and conducting on Brother (14 CSA nominations in 2023). Both projects had gala premieres at TIFF 2022. In addition to these recent projects, he was the copyist and additional orchestrator for Mike Post (Law & Order) on his double album, currently in post production. Felipe was responsible for providing sheet music for the 80-piece orchestra which recorded at the Sony stage in LA in October 2022 under the baton of Mike Post. This was the same ensemble that John Williams contracts —they were recording Indiana Jones 5 that same week!

Madison Anglin is a composer for various types of media who likes to stem from textural and rich harmonic palettes. She has earned her Master’s Degree in Screen Scoring from New York University. The program has led Madison to score several different projects ranging from animation to investigative documentaries. Madison’s collaborations have screened at DOC NYC Festival, The American Black Film Festival and The Atlanta Film Festival. Interrogated, a documentary she co-scored, was shortlisted for a Student Yugo BAFTA Award. She is also a recipient of the Television Academy Foundation Internship class of 2023 in the music category. Madison hopes to continue to grow her craft as a composer, conductor, and musical entrepreneur.

Medhat Hanbali is a composer who specializes in music for media. His expansive palette ranges from orchestral to jazz and led him to score a multitude of critically acclaimed projects across the globe such as Inside Lehman Brothers (BBC), The World According to Amazon (CBC/France 5), Gala des Olivier (ICI Tele), Mouvement Deluxe (Teletoon) and Si On S’aimait Encore (TVA).

In 2019, he was awarded the 1st prize for Best Animated Score at the SOCAN Foundation awards, out of 350 submissions. Beyond his composing career, Medhat actively collaborates with artists in the pop world as an arranger and producer such as Éric Bernier (The Voice), Bobby Bazini, Genevieve Leclerc (Les Miserables) and Robert Marien (Notre-Dame de Paris).

In 2021, Côté began working with Bear McCreary’s studio Sparks & Shadows, composing additional music for Activision’s Call Of Duty: Vanguard, and its subsequent expansions. The score received critical acclaim, and was nominated for a Grammy in 2022. Over the past few years since, Côté has written additional music for the third season of Apple TV’s See, Netflix’s The Witcher, Blood Origin, Netflix’s We Have a Ghost, and the recent Universal Pictures film The Last Voyage of Demeter. Côté also worked directly with McCreary on his score to The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, serving as a session producer for the soloists.

Upcoming projects include additional music to Mark Isham’s score to The Haunting in Wicker Park. Currently, he is composing on a new TV series with Sparks & Shadows and McCreary, and is composing the score to the feature film Valentine’s Town.

American/Canadian conductor Andrew Crust has developed a versatile international career as a conductor of orchestral, opera, ballet, film and pops programs.

In his third season as Music Director of the Lima Symphony Orchestra, Andrew programs and conducts the Grand Series, Pops and Educational series and has led collaborations with soloists such as Charles Yang, Amit Peled, Sandeep Das, Awadagin Pratt and Laquita Mitchell.

Andrew served as the Associate Conductor of the Vancouver Symphony in Canada from 2019-2022, where he led around 45 performances with the VSO each season, and made dozens of recordings released on theconcerthall.ca. Andrew returns frequently to the VSO as a guest conductor.