Soundtrack’s Jeff Rona was interviewed by the online publication, ELECTRONIC MUSICIAN, about his recent album, ‘Projector,’ as well as upcoming projects. The feature interview was published online.
Website – Jeff Rona
Interview: Jeff Rona
By Francis Prève
Jeff Rona is one of those artists whose entire career seems to embody the essence of “ambient music.” As a soundtrack composer, technologist, and musician, he’s both ubiquitous, yet often in the background. The directors he has worked with include Ridley Scott, Robert Altman, and Stephen Spielberg, and his musical collaborations run the gamut from Philip Glass to Jon Hassel to Dead Can Dance. And he’s conceived and developed some of the most unusual Kontakt instruments on the market—Wide Blue Sound’s Orbit and Eclipse. But this is just scratching the surface.
Stepping back from film work last year, Jeff composed and produced one of the most impressive ambient albums in recent history, Projector (Wide Blue Sound Records). Seamlessly blending emotional performances ranging from live cello and guitar to spoken poetry—as well as Rona’s unique approach to processing acoustic material—Projector accomplishes the goal of being simultaneously ethereal and extremely complex.
As a synthesist and sound designer, I was fascinated by how elusive it was to determine the sources for his soundscapes, which are anything but conventional. Fortunately, Jeff was available to explain his production process, as well as give us a glimpse into what’s on the horizon for the year.
Francis: How did the idea of ‘Projector’ come about?
Jeff: As I was finishing up a beautiful and somewhat experimental Brazilian film, I was invited to be an artist at the Soundtrack Cologne, an annual film and videogame music event in Cologne, Germany. I was already invited to give a master class, but they brought up the idea of me doing a live concert. They didn’t have the budget for a full orchestra as they had previously, so the idea of something more intimate was of interest. Having just worked on this rather ambient score and having a lot of extra material that didn’t make it into the film, I asked how they felt about doing a concert not based on a score but on the underlying musical concept. They were really enthusiastic, and that became the genesis of the project. The result was quite unlike a traditional film score, and perhaps harder to define. In the end we did two concerts, one in the same theater where Keith Jarrett did his landmark ‘The Köln Concert’ album.
To continue reading Jeff Rona’s interview – Electronic Musician