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SMA Spotlight: Christoph Zirngibl

17/07/2020
Music & Sound
London, United Kingdom
81
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SMA Talent caught up with Christoph to talk about the proudest moment of his career

Christoph Zirngibl is a German film composer, songwriter and musician who lives in Munich with his family. He was recently nominated for ‘Best Breakthrough Composer’ by the International Film Music Critics Association. Other accolades include a Hollywood Music in Media Award and a New York Indie Film Festival Award for his work on the 2017 short film ‘King Grandpa’, as well as the Jerry Goldsmith Award for Best Composer for his work on Konstantin Ferstl's 'Finis Terrae' (2019). 

Christoph loves to combine the strengths of band music and orchestral music, so he regularly works with international session musicians like Giacomo Castellano, Luke Cyrus Goetze, Stephan Ebn and Deryn Cullen as well as with renowned orchestras such as the German Film Orchestra Babelsberg, the Warsaw Radio Symphony, the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.

SMA Talent had a chat with Christoph to talk about how he got his start as a composer, how he likes to work, and his advice for new composers.


Q > What drew you to a career as a film and TV composer?

Christoph Zirngibl > I remember mainly two experiences during my childhood that made me aware of the fact that there is such a thing as film music: first, my parents used to watch a German sci-fi series called 'Raumpatrouille' (Spaceship Orion) with an iconic score by Peter Thomas (whom I got the opportunity to collaborate with later on). That score made heavy use of a Hammond organ and trombones, instruments which I knew from my father being a hobby musician. I got hooked on the main theme with its bold, heroic trombone melody, big Hammond chords and driving beats.

And for another thing: at the age of ten or twelve I was a big fan of dinosaurs. From the moment I heard that there was a film in the making called 'Jurassic Park', I was impatient to see it. I made it to the first screening at our small local movie theatre and was not only blown away by the amazing visual effects but also by John Williams’ score, which made me think: it must be the greatest job on this planet to compose music that – jointly with such great visuals – evokes this big emotion. There was no internet back then and I didn’t know how to even start going in that direction! But, by doing little tracks with my keyboards I finally started getting into music technology.  

At school, I was asked to compose the music for our school theatre plays, which allowed me to improve my grade point average. That’s where I met Konstantin Ferstl, a musically very talented schoolmate (he now is a director and writer and I’ve composed the score for all of his movies so far). We formed a band, wrote lots of songs and did some crazy concerts, and then I was lucky enough to get one of the five slots in the film scoring program of the University of Music in Munich. After two months I got my first assistant job, and after two years I’d scored my first feature! It’s been fifteen years now, and I’ve written the score for about eighty TV movies and feature films.

Q > What does an ideal working day look like for you?

Christoph > It’s all a bit different now during lockdown, but in general I follow a pretty strict schedule. I got into the habit of doing so after attending a master class with Michael Giacchino in 2008 or 2009, who told us about his daily routine which I then adapted. So, I for one get up at around 7 am, take my daughter to kindergarten and start working at around 08:30 am until around 6:30 pm when I have dinner with my family. Usually, I try not to do evening or night shifts but, of course, that sometimes has to happen. I have a brilliant assistant who takes care of cue sheets, exports of stems and playouts of video demos. Delegating this kind of work has reduced my stress level and increased my creativity and productivity a lot. Even on tight deadlines and parallel projects, I try to stick to this working day routine and most of the time it works out really well.

Q > What has been the proudest moment of your career so far?

Christoph > I am quite proud of and happy about the fact that, for more than fifteen years now, I have been able to make a living from what I love doing the most. 

Having said that, the proudest moment might have been standing on stage after the live premiere of 'Finis Terrae', when my score had just been performed live-to-picture, and experiencing endless minutes of standing ovations for some really hard work. That made my daily efforts more 'palpable' than ever, as normally people watch or hear my music at home or at the cinema and as a film music composer you rarely get direct feedback from your audience.

Q > When a scene or a part of your score just isn’t working, what do you do to clear your head?

Christoph > If it’s a movie project I simply jump to the next cue. Most of the time you find the solution later in the film. I always try to progress chronologically through the film as soon as I have an idea of the basic sound and themes of the key scenes. Often, I only do very rough sketches of a scene and try to keep the pace. That way I avoid getting stuck with scenes that I can’t get rolling.

But, sometimes, I discard everything and start from scratch with a different approach. That helps a lot when under heavy pressure—you’re forced to start composing without having a detailed concept. Once you’ve scored a complete film and know the scenes well, you’re often a lot faster on the second pass with fresh ideas.

In general, it helps a lot to take a step back, to think what the story is about and how the music can support this in that specific scene.

Q > You mentioned the live-film project 'Finis Terrae' – can you tell us a little bit about the process of writing that score?

Christoph > This was a quite unique experience: the artistic director of a theatre heard my suite from 'Trans Bavaria' on a classical radio program that broadcasted a short report about me winning at the Hollywood Music in Media Awards. The next day he called me to schedule a meeting: he wanted to know if there was a feature of mine they could show in their theatre, with music performed live to picture with symphonic orchestra, band and choir! 

I suggested to go a different route: How about the premiere of an arthouse movie directed by Konstantin Ferstl. At the time the film was still in the making, meaning that a completely new score would be performed live at the theatre. He agreed, and one year later two sold-out concerts took place, featuring a movie that nobody had ever seen or known of before with around 120 musicians on stage performing my score! 

We later recorded the whole score–a huge undertaking for such a small indie film–and it makes me very proud to see that this soundtrack is getting a really great response on a worldwide scale, despite the fact that only a hand full of people have had the chance to watch the movie. I was even nominated as Breakthrough Composer of the Year by the IFMCA!

Q > What do you wish you’d known when you were starting out as a composer that you know now?

Christoph > If I had known too much, I never would have had the courage to do a lot of the things I did. I started my career by saying “yes” very often and without thinking too much about how things can be realised until I had to do them and without thinking too much about remuneration. I got a lot of opportunities that way that shaped the course of my career. So, in my opinion, you don’t need to know too much in the beginning—you just have to be really dedicated to what you are doing.


SMA > Thanks Christoph!


Find out more about Christoph's work via the SMA website, or his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. 


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