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Kyle-Shepherd-Photo-by-C-Lindsey-Apollis

KYLE SHEPHERD

"Kyle Shepherd is arguably one of South Africa’s leading progressive pianists, composers and band leaders of his generation."

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

 

Kyle Shepherd is one of South Africa’s most celebrated pianists & composers of his generation.

Internationally recognised for his distinctive compositional style & performances, has made a huge impression on debut as a film score composer for the critically-acclaimed film, Noem My Skollie / Call Me Thief – South Africa’s official entry to the 2017 Academy Awards – for which he earned a nomination for the 2017 South African Film & Television Award [SAFTA] for Best Achievement in an Original Music Score in a Feature Film.

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Fueled by his life-long passion for the movies & video games and fascination with the film-making process – coupled with his vast experience in composing and arranging music for creative collaborations with a diverse array of creative music, arts & culture practitioners – actors, film & theatre directors, photographers & dancers, composing music for film has been quite a natural transition for the prolific young composer.

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“Emotionally driven melodies, atmospheric minimalism and textural soundscapes, underscoring a visual narrative, have always been something I’ve thought about as a serious avenue for music-making. While composing for film differs to composing for my own solo work, in that it offers the luxury of emotional anonymity, I feel very close to stories and visuals as a stimulus for composition. The scope of the script, vision of the director and performances of the actors and actresses, is what, to me, evokes the sound palette. When I hear music or read a script, my focus is on hearing or reading what is between the notes or words, paying close attention to the emotional disposition of the character in a scene. Then my job is to create sonic scaffolding for those emotions and to deliver it to the audience in the most understandable way regardless of the complexity of the on-screen narrative,” explains Shepherd.

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“With his score of Noem My Skollie / Call Me Thief, Kyle Shepherd has forged the emotional spine on which the rest of the film’s emotional journey rests on. Sparse and delicate; haunting and melancholic – this aural journey permeates the inner life of a complex character. But it is never without hope – and in the end rewards us with a deep sense of cathartic resolution. If you don’t finish it with a lump in your throat, you don’t have a heart.” – Daryne Joshua (Director)

Daryne JoshuaDirector, Noem My Skollie / Call Me Thief

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