Andy Hill is a composer, educator, and a Grammy Award–winning supervisor/producer of music for motion pictures. During what has become known as “the Disney Renaissance,” he served as Walt Disney Pictures vice president of music production for a decade when it earned nine Academy Awards in song and score categories for films such as The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast. Over the span of a 30-year career, Hill has devoted himself to the theory and practice of creating effective and lasting music for motion pictures, working side by side with past legends like Elmer Bernstein and Jerry Goldsmith and current masters such as Howard Shore and Hans Zimmer. In 2006 he left Hollywood to create and direct the graduate program in music composition for the screen at Columbia College Chicago, a post he held for five years before accepting his new mission for Berklee in Valencia, where he will oversee both film scoring and contemporary writing programs, the first of which launches in September 2012.
Hill has demonstrated amply over the past decade that his committment to students does not end at the classroom door. His graduates can be found in Hollywood and other international media centers, working with composers of global renown such as John Powell, Mark Isham, Mychael Danna, Javier Navarrete, and Johnny Klimek. An avid networker, bridge builder, and composer advocate, Hill will bring to Valencia the resources to help make it an international destination for media music.
1- How will Berklee in Valencia’s scoring for film, television, and video games graduate program help students interested in pursuing a career in the music and entertainment industry?
The goal of a small, selective program like this one won’t be simply to train and certify composers, but to help transition them into the professional world. We want to create a backbench of talent ready to fill the needs of global media producers at the highest level of craft and artistry. The relationships that Berklee Valencia builds with the industry will be as important to our grads as what happens in the classroom, and will also keep our students at the cutting edge of what filmmakers and game producers demand.
2- What academic and musical opportunities does the new campus in Valencia offer?
Valencia, Spain is culturally and geographically at the epicenter of the world music scene, with lifelines not only to European media centers, but the vital and developing media hubs in Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. It is also convenient to two of the three major international festivals that celebrate film music, the Fimucité Festival in Tenerife and the Festival Internacional de Música de Cine in Ubeda. Hollywood comes en masse to these events each year. Beyond this, Valencia is an intensely musical city, and having the Palau de les Arts literally in our back yard will provide a fantastic resource for our students. Academically, the grounding that Dan Carlin has given the undergrad program in Boston—combined with my own experience in building a successful graduate program and the contributions of our faculty—should put our students in a very good position.
3- What characteristics are you are looking for in prospective students?
More than anything else, we will be looking for original and distinctive “voices,” because this is also what filmmakers and media producers of all kinds are looking for. Those voices may be raw and unformed when we first hear them, but as long as they hint at something fresh and exciting, we can develop them. A passion to create music that finds its heart and soul on the screen is also essential. Of course, we want students whose musicianship and command of the musical vocabulary is exemplary, because we can’t go from A-Z in a one year graduate program. Past academic performance is important, but the key ingredient is the music.
4- What advice would you give to future students of scoring for film, television, and video games graduate program at Berklee in Valencia?
If your command of theory and harmony (along with your ability to follow a score) isn’t roughly at the level of a third-year undergraduate composition student, you will want to do some “woodshedding” before you enter the program. Berklee offers online classes, as do many other institutions, and private instruction is also an option. Many of the finest film and video game composers are self-taught, so don’t feel intimidated if you haven’t attended a conservatory or achieved virtuosity on a single instrument. Virtually all music for the screen is now created in sequencing programs like Logic Studio and Digital Performer, using digital samples of orchestral and other instruments, so if this is an entirely new world to you, begin exploring it now.