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For more than twenty years, I have been writing music for a wide variety of film, TV and theatre projects, including: Saxophone soundtrack for Neil Jordan's Angel, recorded in Windmill and Ardmore Studios. Incidental music for Brian Friel's Communication Cord. The stage set of an old Irish cottage which is entirely reproduction and where nothing is as it appears, is echoed in music that, at first hearing, is genuine Irish trad but gradually reveals itself to be as suspect as the set and the characters' values. Incidental music for Frank McGuinness' Carthaginians, - tense, foreboding, orchestral music. Co-composed soundtrack for RTE/Channel 4 film, Summer Lightning. Music reflects 1890s Wicklow setting of the adaptation of the Turgenev novel, First Love. Soundtrack for BFI Film, Fords on Water, a road movie set in a Britain of the future. In the past decade: Produced and arranged songs by Bono, Shane MacGowan, Elvis Costello and Christy Moore for Ronnie Drew's first solo album, Dirty Rotten Shame for Sony Records. Co-arranged, produced and recorded an album of Irish slow airs, Calm after the Storm, played on saxophones, clarinets and strings, working throughout with Máire Breatnach. Composed all music for 10 BBC documentaries including: an educational series where the music had to be accessible to a viewership in its teens (ie dance music) and had to subliminally echo the programmes' content; a dramatic reconstruction of the results of drug abuse; a 'know-your-rights' series for BBCNI Education; a programme on alcoholism. Was part of the team that won a BAFTA for United, a BBC drama for which I wrote, arranged and produced all music. United is the story of a Co Antrim teenager who starts a Man United supporters' club in his village; local gossip leads the two factions in the village, loyalist and republican, to believe that it is their usual protagonists who are planning a street parade whereas it is an innocent fund-raising football fanatic........ The film is a commentary on the parades issue in NI politics. The music had to be Irish but not identifiably orange or green. All music for BBC film, Great Journeys, set in Mexico. I researched indigenous Mexican music first. All music, songs and effects for Sometimes, by Damian Gorman for the Replay Theatre Company, Belfast. Co-composed and recorded all music for 3 documentaries made by Liberty Films, Dublin for broadcast on the UK History Channel in 2005. All music for 4 documentaries on Cork harbour for Bailey Films, to be shown in May 2006 on RTE 1. Keith Donald |