As we approach the end of 2022, there's one composer who has consistently impressed us with her passion, versatility and modesty in the face of soaring success.
It is with great pleasure that we bring to you our December Cover Feature artist, our fourth Podcast Episode guest and our Composer of the Year: Natalie Holt!
Join us as our host Charles Steinberg sits down with Natalie to discuss the origins of her composing journey, where she draws the most inspiration from and what - if any - she would still like to add to her eclectic musical repertoire.
For me, writing music is like writing stories.
Charles: When did you start noticing that “Oh, yeah, there were people who actually composed this, and conducted this, and performed this for this part of the film.”
Natalie: Perhaps with rose-tinted spectacles, I feel like I came away from E.T. singing the theme. I can remember having the theme in my head, and seeing those boys taking off on their bikes, and trying to do that with mine… I see my daughter - I’ve got an eight year-old - and she just lives in a fantasy world. If she’s just watched a movie, she’ll be kind of re-enacting it and playing it, it’s like she’s living the movie in her mind. I think that’s kind of what I was doing, and then I was always tinkering around on the piano, and… stories. Writing music was like writing stories. Little songs that were little snippets of emotion. For me, all those things were combined.
I think there’s an interesting growth in the quality of music being written for these TV shows, which is exciting.
Do you ever recall, as you were growing older and learning to play and find your way into storytelling, any other examples of that appreciation for music?
When I was younger, I used to set the video recorder to record a movie that looked interesting – art house movies, they tended to be. My mum and dad would be out working when I got back from school, so I would get home from school everyday and watch a movie, or half a movie. I watched Days of Heaven, this Terrence Malick film, and I remember trying to work out what that music was — Aquarium from the Saint-Saëns piece.
Watching films is the thing that’s inspiring.
I remember these bigger and more complicated narratives… getting into Taxi Driver, and the Coppola films, and Charlie Chaplin, and just getting into film and film history in general, and going on that journey; on a crappy VHS in the 90s. As a teenager, you’re in such a weird and vulnerable place, and I felt like film was a way of understanding the world when I was growing up, with those more complicated emotions you’re feeling.
I think a lot of expressing yourself through music is about releasing something out of you.
Can you pick out a moment where you thought, “This is why I love doing what I do"?
I remember I got tickets to see A Hidden Life - at the Cannes Film Festival, which is just this celebration of film - and Terrence Malick was always one of my teenage 'noticing-more-adult-emotions' moments in film.
The film had a James Newton Howard score, and it’s just so powerful. It's such an incredible movie, and seeing that film in that huge cinema at Cannes, at its world premiere, with Terrence Malick there... I just found that really overwhelming. I thought “This is why I’m doing what I’m doing... I’m totally inspired by cinema.”
Track list:
Intro Cues
1. Days of Alderaan – Obi-Wan Kenobi
2. Stop – Loki: Vol. 2
3. Hold Hands – Obi-Wan Kenobi
4. Bail and Leia – Obi-Wan Kenobi
5. Jet Ski – Loki: Vol. 1
6. Loki Processing – Loki: Vol. 1
7. TVA – Loki: Vol. 1
Body
1. The Path – Obi-Wan Kenobi
2. Inner Working – Loki: Vol. 1
3. Young Leia – Obi-Wan Kenobi
4. Distancia – Fever Dream
5. Lamentis-1, 2077 - Loki: Vol. 1
6. Nari's Shadow – Obi-Wan Kenobi
7. He Who Remains – Loki: Vol. 2.
Out now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify & all other leading platforms.