Assignments for Film Scoring Academy of Europe
This page contains my responses to assignments completed during my MFA at the Film Scoring Academy of Europe in Sofia, Bulgaria.
I started the program on September 15, 2025 and will complete it in August.
The music on this page includes mockups, drafts, and recorded live performances.
I’ll update this section as often as I can.
September 18, 2025
Learning Mockup Fundamentals
Our first assignment was to mock up some famous melodic lines from film cues. We were given the French horn solo from Jurassic Park and a violin line from WALL-E to recreate. I also tried mocking up an excerpt from Prokofiev’s sixth symphony that I like a lot. The excerpt is in the second movement, two before 8.
This is what my MIDI programming looked like. The large blocks in the second and third tracks are my tempi, and the squiggly lines in the patterns are my modulation (CC1) changes.
September 26, 2025
Mockups
I wanted to try doing a beautiful moment from Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major. I couldn’t find a good way to program the piano using my mouse, so I had to play it. I tried my best, but that trill is long, and I don’t know how to play the piano!
September 25-30, 2025
Sound Design and Serum
Our first full course was on sound design and synthesis, especially using Serum and the functions in our DAWs. For our first assignments, we were tasked with using the tools we discussed to create new sounds or recreate sounds we heard in the music listened to in class. I also wrote a little tune to practice using the software.
Session 1
Scoring an Emotion
October 4, 2025
Our first proper assignment was to write a short piece for solo piano and synthesizer evoking an emotion of our choice. The goal was to make the emotion as recognizable as possible, and to test that, we played a guessing game with our pieces. If the majority of guesses were for the correct emotion, you succeeded in the assignment. I was among the successful, which was a great relief.
Rubatosis, a word coined by John Koenig in his project, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, is defined as “the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat.” For the sake of the assignment, my emotion was anxiety. But rubatosis was the underlying sensation.
We recorded the performance at Doli Media Studio on October 4, 2025. The pianist performing is Rumen Canov.
We had 20-30 minutes with the pianist to record our pieces. I was one of the librarians, so I stayed for the whole eight-hour recording session. I sketched orchestration notes on my score to pass the time, and when I got home, I spent the night completing the orchestration.
October 7-10, 2025
Sound Design and Serum (cont.)
Here are some more daily assignments for the module. For the sidechaining example, a challenge was to make the funniest drop in the class.
Session 2
Scoring a Descriptive Scene
October 25, 2025
For our second assignment, we received briefs describing three short scenes. The scene I chose was about two lovers saying goodbye at a train station.
We had a piano trio to compose for, plus synth prelays. I decided to focus on the instrumentalists more than the synths when writing, but I will eventually make the cue a hybrid score before I submit it.
We recorded the performance at Doli Media Studio on October 25, 2025.
The left recording is piano trio only, and the right recording includes sound effects and design.