Photo: Dave Curro from Spin Rhythm XD top left, Fabian Acuna top right and Matthew Tinkler bottom
Australian composers and songwriters can deepen their engagement with the games community and produce exceptional new video games works through High Score: Co-op, an intensive virtual compositional opportunity that brings together Australian music creators with the local games industry. The title Co-op draws on co-op gaming, a multiplayer experiences where people work together towards common goals.
In 2021 High Score: Co-op pairs up composers and songwriters with experienced gaming composers, allowing them to create dynamic music for locally developed rhythm game Spin Rhythm XD. The game and its requirements will act as a starting point for the composers and give insights into not only how to compose music for games, but how the music is implemented into the game itself.
The program takes place virtually over two days and consist of multiple songwriting rooms hosted on a community Discord server. Each session will match up different writers, to allow participants to collaborate with a range of different people.
Lead music maker, explosion engineer and creature creatorat PlaySide Studios. Chris has worked with clients such as Google, Square Enix, Warner Bros and IBM, but personal highlights include remixing 'Snake Eater' for Meta/ Gear SolidV, designing audio for the BBC's first ever VR documentary, and getting eaten by a T-Rex as the voice of the 'Trapper' class in Prima/Carnage: Extinction.
Dave Curro is a co-owner of Super Spin Digital, developers of electronic music rhythm action game Spin Rhythm XD.His work covers a variety of roles including game design, sound design, composition, production and legal work.
Belinda Coomes is a music composer specialising incomposing for games including Ring of Pain and Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun Rising. Additionally is the Ingestion Coordinator at Instyle Music, a music library providing music for Film, Television, and media, where she is involved in the music submission process.
Black Cat White Cat Music is an international MusicSupervision agency based out of Tokyo and Los Angeles. The company functions completely bilingually, bridging along standing gap in the industry in Japan. With their international network and experience, BCWC are pioneering the Music Supervision frontier in Japan with blazing force.
BLACK CAT WHITE CAT is a agency offering work from a unique and diverse group of musicians at the forefront of progressive music today, providing a diverse roster of clients with high-quality and singular sounds for their film, commercial, and brand projects.
François Tétaz is a film composer and music producer who won the AACTA Best Original Score Award in 2019 and Best Soundtrack at the APRA Screen Awards in 2020 for Judy and Punch. He won 2 Grammys, including Record of the Year at the 55th annual Grammy Awards in 2013 for his work with Gotye and an APRA / Australian Guild of Screen Composers Award for his score for Wolf Creek in 2006. He is currently working with Gotye in his studio in Melbourne, Australia.
Aimee has opened for artists including Pat Benatar, The Baby Animals, The Superjesus and Daryl Braithwaite and has written and produced numerous songs for other artists. She also writes and produces music for sync and TV including music especially for the Olympic Games.
Beatrice Lewis
Electronic music producer Beatrice Lewis is one of the most exciting multifaceted artists in the current Australian music landscape.She is a songwriter, performer and producer of one of Australia's most electrifying new dance acts, Haiku Hand; a songwriter and producer for award-winning indigenous band Kardajala Kirridarra, and enjoys a flourishing career as a solo artist.
Ben Talbot-Dunn is a composer working in film, television, advertising and theatre. Spending his early career abroad, Ben has reconnected with the Australian arts community in recent years while maintaining a focus internationally. He has scored for a number of short films and documentaries, worked with multiple advertising agencies on national and international campaigns and created sound design and music for a raft of Melbourne theatre projects, installations and live performances.
Melbourne based creative Kwasi has navigated his evolution from rapper to career artist with grace, authenticity and an unwavering commitment to his personal and professional development. Embracing his originality and letting his hard work speak for itself, as an engineer, producer and studio owner dedicated to not only his own development but the progress of like-minded artists.
Eden Altman aka Eastward is a Melbourne musician,composer and producer. He has performed and recorded with Opiuo, Spoonbill, Josh Abrahams, Paul Kosky, Abby Dobson, Matt Walters and Husky. Most recently, he completed work as a session guitarist for the Annapurna Interactive video game “The Artfu Escape”. The game has been a worldwide success exclusive to XBOX and Steam.
Bursting onto the EDM scene in 2017, Enya Angel has provenher worth as a vocalist and songwriter with releases on Mau5trap, Armada, Whose Afraid of 138!?, Ministry of Sound, MRW Music, Enhanced Recordings, Strange Fruits and more.Her releases with artists including Darude, Dimatik, Exis, Jaysounds, Tigerlily, Uberjak'd, Tom Budin, EDDIE and more have charted internationally on Beatport, iTunes, Spotify, MTV and the Australian ARIA Charts, including #1 on the Beatport Trance Charts top 100 with "Free", #1 on the Phillipines iTunesChart with "Love Me Back", and #1 on the Beatport ElectroHouse Charts with "Lullabye".
Deeply motivated by expanding his creative expression of artistic practices and knowledge, Fabian Acuna is part of the transformation wave of new, eclectic compositional music showcasing Melbourne's musicianship and culture.Fabian's persistent curiosity with music continuously showed from the age of 7, resulting in over 20 years of performing Trumpet, graduating from VCASS and VCA with extensive musical theory and versatile explorations of composition and music production.
Monster Mansion is the synth-pop solo project of writer/producer and indie game dev Jacob Leaney. His music is dark and energetic with clear influences from being a 90s kid. Leaney also develops stand-alone companion video games for each release, most recently 'Video World' (2021) - a synth-pop halloween story/rhythm game about working at a video store, which won 'The Guest Plate' award at the 2021 NZ Games Fest, and is a finalist at the 2021 Australian Game Developer Awards.
Matt Tinkler is an electronic music producer, composer, audio engineer and educator from Melbourne, Australia. After completing a Bachelor of Music (Composition and MusicProduction) at the Australian Institute of Music in 2016, Matt went on to then complete a Bachelor of Music (Honours) (Interactive Composition) at the University of Melbourne in 2018, furthering his capabilities as a composer and producer.
Matt has released multiple EPs, singles and remixes under his solo electronic moniker Martiln, making music that blurs the lines between genres such as future bass, dubstep, trance, pop, trap and drum 'n' bass into lush, heavy and emotional tracks that take the listener on a sound-driven journey through fantastical landscapes.
Simon Hall is best known for his work in comedy band Tripod. Simon’s solo projects include Second Wedding Singer, commissioned by the Adelaide Cabaret Festival and the award-winning Mandaddy: Songs of Love and Love. Simon has spent 2019-2020 working on an under wraps interactive project. In 2017, Simon wrote Some Change with Austin Wintory (Journey, PS4) featuring Troy Baker (The Last of Us).
Blending her love of throbbing sub bass, punchy kicks and atmospheric synth sounds with the occasional dark psychedelic twist; WISER is inspired by the raw energy and emotion of harder music genres, while infusing her trademark delicate warmth.
After years of sound exploration, human connection and spine-tingling early morning rave experiences, WISER has developed a way of curating music that defies logic; moody and dark though somehow light and ecstatic. Her wide range of influences ensure that her production follows a similar formula that is hard to categorise, but certainly worth taking notice of…
With over 60 credits in multimedia compositions, Tamara of Weaver Music is a highly sought-after music composer. Exploring hybrid scoring techniques with an original approach in her compositions, many of her works have been displayed in international festivals such as MIFF, MWFF, LA Film Festival, Melbourne Fringe Festival, and more. Her projects are available to stream on web series platforms, ABC iView, Docplay and Amazon Prime.
Friday 8th - Saturday 9th October
Welcomes/curator and guest intros
Introductions, setup and tech troubleshooting
Roles: how do you want to divvy up the start of the process?
Song form start
Fill out remaining song form
Consolidate your ideas, polish!