Maria Castro profile picture

Maria Castro

composer and sound designer

About Me

Maria Castro is a sound designer and composer currently based in France. She worked in London for several years, mainly on film and documentary, and has been involved in various projects related to the London Film School, Royal Holloway College, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, UK Film Council, Final Cut, Modem Media, Berlinale Talent Campus, Le Centre du Son and CinéArchives/Toiles d'Humanité.
In 2004 Maria was an official participant of the Berlinale Talent Campus during the 54th Berlin International Film Festival. She was also one of the three finalists selected by David Holmes for the VW Score Competition (for composers and sound designers) that took place during the Berlinale. That same year she received a commission from the British percussion quartet Ensemble Bash to compose the piece 'Film Noir' for a series of concerts that took place in England in the summer 2004.
Maria's string quartet in tribute to Jeff Buckley features in the documentary 'Amazing Grace: Jeff Buckley' - winner of 'best use of music in film' award at the CMJ Filmfest New York 2004, best music documentary at the San Francisco World Film festival 2005, and best film and best documentary at the D.I.Y. Film Festival, Los Angeles 2006.
Maria studied composition in the UK with Peter Wiegold, Simon Holt, Brian Lock and Philipp Wachsmann, and in France with Arnaud Petit and Francis Dhomont. She also attended a composition course with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Germany in 1998. She attained a first-class honours degree in Music at Royal Holloway, University of London in 2000. In 2006 she was awarded a PhD by the University of London, specialising in composition and sound design for the moving image. David Toop was one of her PhD examiners.
Maria's work has been presented and screened at various venues and film festivals in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Portugal, Italy, United States and Canada.[LOVEMYFLASH]
 

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 6/6/2006
Band Website: mariacastro.co.uk
Band Members: Forthcoming collaborations with Terje Evensen (Norway) and Takashi Mori (Japan)

MANAGEMENT: Agence ApiCorp (Paris)
Influences: alva noto bill viola david toop erik satie john cage yves klein david lynch alan splet walter murch michel chion michel fano daniel deshays pierre schaeffer karlheinz stockhausen jean-luc godard andrei tarkovsky david sylvian fennesz pauline oliveros björk gus van sant wong kar-wai christopher doyle pen-ek ratanaruang hou hsiao hsien stanley kubrick györgy ligeti bach edgard varèse morton feldman john zorn yasujiro ozu hiroshi teshigahara kenji mizoguchi tran anh hung kim ki-duk murray schaffer francis dhomont dominique petitgand pierre huyghe michel gondry pierre reverdy noise sounds events images travel places memory time flow continuity texture timbre effects digital processing floating space silence nature dreams tea wabi-sabi zen japan iceland norway paris brittany weather atmosphere seasons rain wind snow clouds air water skies trees blue white grey green environment urban landscape ecology technology architecture field recordings art film video radio poetry electricity industry acoustics cosmic stellar etc

Sounds Like: Hypnotic, dreamy, nostalgic, spacious... or whatever you like.
Record Label: Mandorla Label
Type of Label: None

My Blog

New Photo Blog

some of my recent photo work can be viewed here:http://insonorise.blogspot.com/
Posted by Maria Castro on Sun, 02 Mar 2008 02:55:00 PST