The BAFTA-winning composer Jessica Curry was recently asked by the Ivors Academy to be interviewed about her career and music as part of their ‘Craft of Composition’ series. Seeing as she is a wonderful human as well as a brilliant composer, she asked if I could be the person interviewing her.
When I was Executive Producer at Classic FM and putting together ideas to create a series devoted to video games music, I attended the Game Music Connect event at London’s Southbank Centre and I have a vivid memory of watching a panel discussion with about 5 or 6 games composers. Jess stood out to me because she was so funny, outspoken and passionate, and I knew I’d found my presenter!
I emailed her asking if she’d be interested in a radio show, and we ended up working on several series of High Score together. I learnt so much from her about the games industry and games music, and I’m chuffed to be able to call her a friend. She recommends books to me, gives great advice, suggested the brilliant Luci Holland to me when I was launching Scala Radio and searching for a presenter for our weekly video games music show, The Console, and we have a shared fascination with the actress Fairuza Balk – but that’s another story.
And so, on Tuesday 29th September, we chatted for an hour or so over Zoom about her training, her process for composing the music for Dear Esther, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture and Little Orpheus, and the importance of collaboration.
Jessica wanted the interview to be uplifting and positive, so we veered away from the perhaps expected conversations about being a woman composer in a male-dominated industry, and instead we spent the time discussing her influences, the differences between composing for games as opposed to scoring films or TV shows, how vulnerability can also be a strength and her advice for aspiring games composers.
There was a Q&A at the end and thanks to everyone who submitted questions because they were all brilliant, not only demonstrating how engaged the games music world is, but also showing how much love is out there for Jess’ music.
