It has been a great week for Simple Music Productions. First of all,

STEAL A PENCIL FOR ME, the true story of a love triangle set in a concentration camp during the holocaust, won the "Best of the Fest" Audience Award at the Sonoma Valley Film Festival in California.



and

ANGELS IN THE DUST, a documentary about the Bothshabelo orphanage in South Africa, won the Audience Award at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, North Carolina.




Also, The documentary I scored, LALO GUERRERO: THE ORIGINAL CHICANO, was nominated for a 2007 Alma Award.

A great time was had by all for the United Nations screening of STEAL A PENCIL FOR ME. It was incredible to finally see the movie with an audience - in the United Nations no less! There were several audible sniffles during the screening and a rousing standing ovation at the end. It was a great experience.


I finally met the stars of the documentary, Holocaust survivors Ina and Jack Polak, and handed them a CD of the score:



Here's a shot before the screening in the Dag Hammarskjold Library Auditorium with the legendary editor-diva Kate Amend:



With director Michele Ohayon, Kate Amend, and assistant editor Katie Flint and her brother:

A very important documentary that I worked on will have it's premier this weekend at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, North Carolina, Friday, April 13th at the Civic Center One at 12:15p.

Angels in the Dust
USA — 2007, 96 min.
Directed by Louise Hogarth. Produced by James Egan, Louise Hogarth. A Participant Production.

In the dusty outskirts of a deeply divided nation, the Bothshabelo orphanage offers sanctuary to hundreds of South Africans in need. Con and Marion Cloete traded in a cushy upper class lifestyle in Johannesburg to found a village and school that would provide shelter, care, and guidance for children, teenagers and adults marginalized by race, class, sexual assault and the effects of the prevailing AIDS epidemic. A visual intervention that aims to help put an end to the crisis of infant rape in South Africa, this film constructs a powerful account of the human potential for compassion, commitment, and sacrifice and gives voice to the children healing in the arms of a new kind of family. SW

Program — New Docs: Films in Competition
World Premiere
Q&A following screening

To get an idea what this documentary is about, check out the trailer here.

I co-composed the score with the very talented and multi-award winning jazz vocalist diva from Johannesberg, South Africa, Simphiwe Dana. In December of 2006, the producer of ANGELS, James Egan, brought her to Los Angeles in what was her very first trip to the United States. She spent 10 days working here in my studio, recording her vocal magic to picture. Her compositional technique is like something I've never seen before - she basically sits in the vocal booth, chooses a tempo and begins to layer her voice one on top of the other. What is amazing about this is that she keeps the harmonic and rhythmic structure (which is almost always very complex) completely in her head. She always seems to know where she is in the composition and layers her harmonies and polyrhythms as if she were singing "row, row, row your boat". It was an amazing thing to watch.


Simphewi and me

I also worked with Ntombikhona Dlamini (who sang on the original Broadway cast of The LION KING) and Eric McKain, who is currently touring with THE LION KING. Also from Senegal, Ibraham Ba and Amadou Fall (pictured below) who played the African Kora, a sort-of harp-like gourd instrument.