Kirsten is a British composer and singer. After completing a degree in Composition and Creative Music Technology at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Kirsten has worked on a range of projects in several areas including synth programming, additional string arrangements, and working as a composer assistant. Her resume includes singing and co-composing music for several projects including the installation Migratory Motor Complex with Artist James Richards (Turner Prize Nominee) exhibited at the Venice Biennale 2017, and working on several scores for film and TV such as I am Greta and Horizon Line. Kirsten is an inspired and inspirational artist whom I had the pleasure of interviewing.
If you weren’t a musician what would you be and why?
Wow, what a question! When I was growing up I was always told that I would make a good headteacher (school principal) maybe because I do like to be quite organized and maybe I was a little bossy as a child, BUT I was never really into that idea. I wanted to make things! So, naturally, my backup plan was to become a doctor… I suppose I would have gotten to ‘make’ people feel better if that counts.
Whilst I love biology, specifically microbiology, there really isn’t any other job for me other than being a musician! There is just something about creating music specifically that puts me into a mindset that I can’t seem to replicate any other way. When I am writing music I go into a complete state of focus that is enveloping, and whilst I am writing I get to occupy my own made-up world. So, in short, a doctor, but in reality, there isn’t really another option other than being a musician.
How did you get into music?
The recorder.
As with most young children in UK primary schools, I was taught how to play the recorder, or at least my teachers tried to teach me. In all honesty, I hated the recorder, I could never get past the stage where you sound like a duck, but I loved to sing! At the same point in time, around the age of 8-10, I was part of the school choir. We sang great songs, ‘Driving in my Car’ by Madness being one of them. My love of music simply grew from there. I began learning to play the piano around the age of 10, although I was never very consistent, and began an on-again-off-again relationship with the piano that lasted until the age of 18, where I then began playing as a means of composing. I learned to play steel pans, yes you read that right, when I was 10 as well and continued to play within a 50 piece band until roughly my late teens. I actually remember dropping one of the big bass pans (the ones that look like full-sized oil drums) when I was first learning and ever since then that pan has always been a little bit out of tune…oops. Maybe I wasn’t as strong a 10 year old as I thought! I continued my music education throughout school: taking up 1:1 vocal lessons, completing numerous piano, musical theatre, classical singing, and theory exams alongside my main education, and eventually completing my undergraduate degree in Composition and Creative Music Technology at the Royal Welsh College of Music.
Let’s talk a little about your university days. On the first day of your undergraduate degree 4 years ago, you were invited to work as a co-composer and vocalist for Wales’ national entry to the Venice Biennale in 2017. How did this emerge?
This project was such a crazy experience! I had basically no training in composition at that point and then I got to be part of one of the world’s largest art festivals at just 19 years old…. ridiculously amazing!
It was late September 2016 and I remember sitting in room 203 at RWCMD, which always had a beautiful view of the park. Our head of department, John Hardy, was asking every one of my new classmates to introduce themselves by announcing one interesting fact about themselves and what instrument they played. I was always particularly terrible at coming up with interesting facts and think I told everyone that I had never eaten a Kiwi before, which I am not sure was even true… At the point where I mention I am a singer, John looks at me with his thinking face on and tells me he has a project for me. From then on I was involved in Wales’ entry for the 2017 Venice Biennale. It was as simple as that really. I sometimes feel like maybe I didn’t deserve this opportunity, but then I think about all the hard work that went into learning/ practicing my vocal skills and all of the theory I revised and remember that whilst it was a case of being in the right place at the right time, I was more than prepared for the tasks that were about to come my way. The next thing to happen was that I met James Richards, the artist creating the exhibition for the Biennale. James is a brilliant, Turner Prize Nominated artist and an enormously kind person. At every point in the process, James made sure that I had creative freedom and felt comfortable with my contributions to the project. Over the next 4-6 months, James and I spent roughly 12 hours in RWCMD’s Sony recording studio creating an enormous bank of vocal materials that would later be used in the final exhibition. Each session, James would bring passages from a new book that was being written to accompany the exhibition and it was my job to record, compose, and sing these passages in an infinite number of ways to begin to tell a story with the words of this book.
I was given the chance to go and see the opening of the Venice Biennale in 2017 when our work opened… it was magical. Experiencing all of the wonderfully creative installations at the Biennale that year is what lead me to go on and create my own installations and to continue working as a session vocalist on a variety of other projects. The name of the exhibition is Migratory Motor Complex and my contributions helped with the six-channel audio installation that formed the key element of the exhibition.
As a vocalist and composer, what is your approach or process of creating work?
As a vocalist, I tend to work with other musicians who already have an idea in mind of what they need and want. I normally enter a project in the latter stages with a brief, which can be quite vague at times, and then I just enjoy creating materials to fit that brief! I spend time creating lots of versions of every style of an idea that might fit the brief so that I can present my collaborator with materials that they can definitely use no matter what. Because I send so many ideas initially, I don’t often have to do revisions, but when I do complete revision the process is more or less the same as the original steps and I just see it as another chance to enjoy singing!
If I compare this to composition, it makes my composing methodologies look messy!… I think it is safe to say that my compositional output is very different from my vocal work: I work on a wider range of projects and generally just compose more than I sing (which is something I am looking to even out in the long term). With composition, the basic outline of the process is always the same, regardless of whether I am working on a film, game, library music track, installation, or a YouTube video. I come up with an extrinsic concept, and then realize this in music after some hard thinking, and then make the tweaks that I feel are necessary before sending my work off for approval to whomever I need to. Even when I am working on my own projects that don’t require me to check in with anyone else, I think it is so, so important to get feedback from someone other than yourself that you trust, to bring you out of tunnel vision mode and assess your work in a detached, critical manner! I am lucky in that my partner is also a composer, so I often ask for his opinion too, even if I do end up ignoring it in the end anyway!…
You’ve completed work on the Hulu Original ‘I am Greta’ and the new Marvel movie ‘Morbius’. Please share your experiences working on both productions.
It still sounds strange to me to say that I worked on a Marvel film and a Hulu Original last year… it wasn’t something that I had expected to be able to say by this point in my career, but I am very thankful that I can!
My role within these productions is tied directly to Swedish composer Jon Ekstrand and female composer Rebekka Karijord. You always believe that projects on this scale have absolutely enormous teams, all hustling together and climbing over one another to get the work done when actually this couldn’t be further from the truth. If 2020 has taught us anything it’s how to adapt, and both of these projects definitely required some creative problem solving to get over the finish line. At the start of both of these projects I was working and living in Stockholm, Sweden, I was going to and from the studio each day and we were all plugging away at our various tasks. Then the craziness of 2020 hit and I had to move back to the UK. At this moment I thought that my part in these projects was over, but thankfully I was wrong.
I ended up completing my roles in both of these productions from the spare bedroom of the house I grew up in, on a laptop with an ethernet cable that trailed from one end of the house, up the stairs, to the other end, enabling me to remotely control the computer I had previously been using in Stockholm… mad!
Another first for me was being allowed to choose my own assistant! I was used to collaborating with people for projects and working as part of a team, but I had never been responsible for someone else in this way before, let alone in the position where I got to choose who it was that was going to be working with us on the project. George Rigby stepped up to the plate and from that point onwards we both were working remotely in Sweden, from the UK on a Marvel movie… I still can’t get my head around it.
All round, both of these projects were great experiences and to think of them just makes me look forward to the next projects to come!
What has been your most memorable project to date, and why?
Ooo this is a tough one, but I think I would have to say that my most memorable project to date was my 2019 installation, ‘Music box’, which introduced children to the families of the orchestra through synesthetic touch and play.
I loved this project! It was the first time that I had gone through the entire process of creating, re-vamping, and executing an idea in a way that was completely my own. This was the first time that I managed such a large project with 10 supporters/ associates/benefactors and a team of over 40 people. Never before had I over-seen the physical construction of a structure that was to become the installation, managed budgets, focused on promotion, recorded music in such a complex way, written music in such a complex way, or lead and created plenty of workshops for children that I ran within primary schools across the UK to support the project. It was a lot, there were long hours and it was tough (I even forgot to listen to the broadcast of my first radio interview on BBC Wales because I was too busy decorating the outside of my installation with synesthetic materials) BUT it was brilliant and the best part about it was that I got to see children actually enjoying the installation and taking something away from the experience!
Who have been your industry influences?
Dua Lipa, Mica Levi, Florence and the Machine, Stephen Sondheim, and Jóhann Jóhannson.
Having spent time working in Stockholm, Sweden, you moved back to the UK and founded a sample library company called ‘Soundbake’. Please tell us more about the company and how it was formed.
During my time in Sweden, I had the opportunity to learn how to code my own music software in the form of virtual instruments/ sample libraries, as well as intimately record several traditional folk instruments using the contact mic that I had built during the previous weeks. I spent hours and hours morphing these sounds into a software instrument that could almost function as a whole piece of music all by itself!
The result was a catalog of software instruments that I wanted to start distributing and developing upon. I wanted to create a memorable brand for the catalog and the idea for Soundbake grew from this. At the time of the companies conception, I was particularly fascinated by the number of females working in the media music industry and how this is represented across all facets of the industry, even down to the marketing styles of sample library companies… When diving further into the sample library market I concluded that for an industry of creatives, who make creative tools that aim to inspire, the range of marketing styles and instruments available weren’t, ironically, particularly inspiring.
Soundbake aims to create evolving, textural sample libraries that add movement and depth to new tracks. Soundbake plays on the idea of cooking up new sounds and extends this metaphor to its marketing where it associates its products to the foods that are most akin to the sounds with which they are made of.
Soundbake’s future foresees the growth of a company that aims to help emerging talent within the media music industry whilst creating a vast range of unique, helpful, foodie sample libraries. Musicians will have the opportunity to learn coding skills that will become helpful when looking for work within the media music industry ladder, learn from industry giants in masterclasses designed to support their additional talents, and just have fun creating interesting sounds in a communal environment!
Aside from Soundbake, you’ve also established a coaching business? You help new freelance musicians find methods of monetizing their skills in an achievable, profitable, and fulfilling way. How is this progressing, and what are the most common obstacles your clients have?
This has been such a good journey so far and this business really is only at the very beginning right now! My partner, Thomas Eggensberger, and I set up ‘UGLiCAT’ during the middle of 2020 and having been putting in a lot of leg work when it comes to the back end of this company, consolidating our combined knowledge and creating a compact and insightful structure for our coaching program that actually gets results, based on techniques we used ourselves to get us to where we are now!
We have designed a program that teaches our students to utilize social media, to create multiple passive income streams that support them enough to enable them time to really start building and growing their dream music career. We take them through step by step how to automate the entire process, social media tactics to create content that converts their followers into paying clients, and the strategies they can use to expand their network within the industry to get the jobs they really want.
We are currently still in the beta stages where we are working with clients for free to really work out how best to deliver all of this information and get our clients up and running. So if anyone does like the idea of this course and wants to help us to help you better then please get in touch and let us know!
The main struggle our clients seem to have is actually imposter syndrome and, what makes this venture even more rewarding, is that our students have said that just by taking the first step, and signing up to be one of our beta clients, they have already seen greater returns across their freelance career, because of that boost in confidence!
What has been your biggest challenge as an artist and how do you overcome it?
I am definitely a perfectionist and this can cause me a lot of stress, particularly at the start of a project/ venture before things really get going and start to become polished. The way I overcome this is to try and stop working around 6 pm every night, and I set my to-do list for the following day just before the end of my working day. This way I know exactly what small steps I have to achieve every day to get to my long-term goals, and finishing at a set time means that I have the energy to attack every day with the same enthusiasm, so I can be even more productive over a long period of time.
Who would you love to collaborate with and why?
I would actually really love to collaborate with Dua Lipa! This definitely isn’t going to happen, BUT it is a great dream that keeps me motivated. Dua Lipa is the artist that I think I relate to the most, simply because we are a similar age and Lipa is doing the job I used to dream of doing growing up. It would be so amazing to do a duet or sing live or anything really with her and to see just how everything she does really happens!
Can you share any information on other projects in the pipeline?
Well… apart from the full release of our 1:1 coaching program for UGLiCAT in the second half of 2021 AND the release of our online course and membership subscription at the end of 2021…
I have just begun a new YouTube channel called Soothing Music! I am uploading new relaxing, nature music videos every Wednesday and Sunday and want to grow this community to bring some relief from these crazy times. It seems to be that, whilst we talk about it more often, people are still struggling to support their mental health as lockdowns and restrictions continue across the world. Therefore, Soothing Music is here as a tool to help everyone remove stress from their life, and to prioritize time for themselves, productivity, and healthy sleep. So if you would like to check this out head over to the link below…
Where can our readers find out more about you and your projects?
Soothing Music:
SUBSCRIBE to my YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5_udxKuklyNDo6dZ8pgu6g
Subscribe here for twice-weekly relaxing videos to bring more calm into your everyday life. Perfect for sleeping, studying, working from home, office work, yoga, mediation, deep sleep, and mindfulness. Follow Soothing Music on Instagram to find out about our latest videos and vote on what you want to see next. join the community!
@soothingmusic.channel
UGLiCAT: follow us on Instagram @_uglicat
If you would like to become one of our free beta clients and take your music from a talent to a profitable, self-sustaining pro freelance music business then DM us on Instagram. Soundbake: https://soundbake.com
New products released and distributed here, PLUS find our range of free sample libraries
here too!
For general news follow me on Instagram @kirstenhevans
Kirsten Evans_Images taken by Kirsten McTernan & Tristian Hardy
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