Hey there from Florida, everyone! We are currently on Spring Break after a crazy eight weeks of constant composing and hard late nights (not like any of us have stopped composing while on break!)

Eimear Noone and Craig Stuart Garfinkle have left us and have flown to various parts of the world along with their wonderful son Eliam. Our time with them will be cherished forever and they really became apart of our Columbia family. We were very lucky to have them with us for these past seven weeks, and we have been so flooded with information about our industry that we have to go through all of our notes again. Their last day with us we went to get dollar burgers and beer at our local spot, Bar Louie.

Many of us have flown in various directions for the break, but we usually still talk at least once a day over Facebook. That’s how close we all are, and how you all will be when attending this program. I’ve been very lucky to have such a strong support system. We’re currently working on a full orchestra piece to bring in for our Orchestration class after the break, which means we’ve been analyzing Stravinsky, Holst, and Williams’ pieces like crazy. I’ll try and get everyone’s piece to post on here so that everyone can hear how far we all have come.

On another note, I am currently working on my Film Scoring competition held every year at the California Independent Film Festival. This is the third year running, and we’ve had about two hundred applicants show interest already for this upcoming competition. For this year’s competition, composers will have to create original music for a romance film. If anyone is interested in joining the competition, you can find all of the information at caiff.org!

Back to Columbia news: Our department recently gained access to another school’s audio/recording department. This will allow us to collaborate and have access to record for the films we are working on—a great opportunity, outside of the wonderful opportunities we already get for recording and everything else.

Until next time!

Katrina