Michael Mcevoy
Michael Mcevoy
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About Michael Mcevoy
Michael is an American composer based in London. He grew up in a musical family studying piano and viola, and is a self-taught guitarist and bass player. In his teens, he studied at the Centre for Young Musicians and played viola in the London Schools Symphony Orchestra. After gaining entry to Leeds College of Music, Michael’s interest in improvisation led him back to London, where he worked as a pianist with saxophonist, Dick Heckstall-Smith’s band, Big Chief. At the same time, he began an apprenticeship at the London recording studio, Matrix, where he met and collaborated with African conga drummer, Reebop Kwaku Bah (Jimmy Cliff, Traffic, Can). He soon established himself as a sought after session musician and arranger working with many pop artists including Scritti Politti, Ian Dury, Soul II Soul, Curiosity Killed the Cat, Steve Winwood and Sting. Michael’s first experience of writing film music was Beeban Kidron’s ‘Vroom’ starring Clive Owen and David Thewlis, followed by ‘The Bearskin - An Urban Fairytale’ starring Tom Waits. His music also featured in a number of high profile documentaries including the Bafta award-winning ‘J’accuse’ (C4), ‘Equinox: Fly Navy’ (C4), ‘Battle of the Hood and Bismarck’ (C4/ITN) and ‘Dog’s World’ (Discovery/Wall to Wall). Returning to the USA in 1998, Michael went on to compose music for documentaries on A&E (Biography), History Channel (Haunted History) and PBS. During this time he received three regional Emmy nominations and was awarded the Emmy in January 2004 for Best Instrumental Music for his work on the documentary, ‘Tennessee Yearbook’. While in the USA, he studied composition with Professor Michael Alec Rose, and conducting with Lyn Bingham at Blair School of Music (Vanderbilt University). He moved back to London in 2001 to study Composition for Screen at the Royal College of Music where he was The Performing Rights Society’s Sir Arthur Bliss Memorial Scholar. In October 2005 he received his Masters in Music degree and was awarded the Joseph Horovitz Prize in Composition for Screen, the first time it had been awarded since 2001. From 2005-08, Michael was a Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music, London in the role of Area Leader, Composition for Screen. Several prime-time documentaries followed including ‘French Beauty’ for the ‘Storyville’ series (BBC2) and ‘E=mc2’ (Nova: ‘Einstein’s Big Idea’) a feature length docu-drama for Darlow/Smithson Productions and WGBH. In the last year, Michael has been increasingly in demand as a film composer, writing original music for Richard Linklater’s ‘Me and Orson Welles’ starring Zac Efron and Claire Danes, due for release end of 2009. He also features in the movie in his first acting role as Orson Welles’ band leader, Epstein. He has also been collaborating with the renowned DJ, Paul Oakenfold, as a co-composer and orchestrator on several feature film scores. In June 2007 they completed a score for the Japanese anime feature, ‘Vexille’, directed by Fumihiko Sori. Winner of Best Animated Feature at Philadelphia Film Festival 2008. More recent projects with Paul include orchestrations for Disney’s ‘G Force’ movie and collaboration on the score for the US top 10 movie ‘Nothing Like the Holidays, starring John Leguizamo and Alfred Molina and the Brit gangster film ‘The Heavy’ starring Stephen Rea and Vinnie Jones due for release in 2009.
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