Master Class: Building your Story Soundscape with Music and Sound with Peter Golub (THE GREAT DEBATERS), Hildur Gu∂nadóttir (JOKER) and More | Presented by the Dolby Institute

Peter Golub is the composer of numerous works for film, the concert hall, theatre and dance. His film scores include: Frozen River (directed by Courtney Hunt and nominated for 2 Academy Awards); The Laramie Project (for HBO); The Great Debaters (directed by Denzel Washington and co-composed with James Newton Howard); Wordplay (directed by Patrick Creadon); Countdown to Zero (dir by Lucy Walker); Sound of a Dream (dir by Zhang Wei); and Songs My Brothers Taught Me (dir by Chloe Zhao). Scores for Broadway include: The Country House (by Donald Marguiles, directed by Daniel Sullivan, with Blythe Danner), The Heiress (directed by Moises Kaufman, with Jessica Chastain) and Hedda Gabler (directed by Nicholas Martin, with Kate Burton). 

In his early career he was Composer-in-Residence for Charles Ludlam's legendary Ridiculous Theatrical Company in Greenwich Village, along with considerable work composing music for the theatre with Joseph Papp at the New York Shakespeare Festival (including numerous productions at the Delacorte in Central Park as well as at the Public downtown) and at La Mama, including work with Ethyl Eichelberger, Ellen Stewart, Jospeh Chaikin and others. His musical, Ampigorey, with book, lyrics and designs by Edward Gorey, was produced at the American Music Theater Festival (Philadelphia), as well as at the American Repertory Theatre (ART) in Cambridge, culminating in an off-Broadway run at the Perry Street Theatre in NY. Amphigorey was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Best Musical. 

His ballet based on Gorey's The Gilded Bat, choreography by Peter Anastos, was commissioned by Ballet West and performed at the Kennedy Center and throughout the US. Other ballets were commissioned by the Miami City Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet, and Atlanta Ballet. Recent concert music includes: Sleepwalking (a cello concerto), Ghost Songs (for voice and piano, to texts by Thomas Hardy), Six Dirty Limericks, Garden Paths (for flute, viola and Harp), Florestan & Eusebius (for saxophone quartet) and A Child of Children and Art (commissioned by pianist Anthony de Mare as part of a set of original piano pieces in tribute to Stephen Sondheim). He studied composition with Toru Takemitsu and Henry Brant.

Golub is the Director of the Sundance Film Music Program and teaches at UCLA's Herb Alpert School of Music. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Glenn Kiser is the Director of the Dolby Creator Lab, Dolby’s initiative to bring education and inspiration to filmmakers and content creators about the creative use of sound and picture in storytelling. Previously, Kiser was the VP & General Manager of Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Sound, where he oversaw sound work on film projects such as Avatar, The Incredibles, the Star Wars prequels, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter films. 

Before joining Skywalker, Kiser was a post-production executive at Propaganda Films, where he worked with directors including David Fincher, Spike Jonze, Jane Campion, and Neil LaBute. Fun facts: Glenn played a mean tuba in high school, and at one time Marlon Brando called him obsessively for two weeks. 

He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Hildur Gudnadóttir is an Academy Award-, Golden Globe-, Emmy-, two-time Grammy-, and BAFTA-winning Icelandic artist, who has been manifesting herself at the forefront of experimental pop and contemporary music. In her solo works, she draws out a broad spectrum of sounds from her instrumentation, ranging from intimate simplicity to huge soundscapes.

Her work for film and television includes “Sicario: Day of the Soldado,” “Mary Magdalene,” and the critically acclaimed HBO series “Chernobyl,” for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award, as well as a Grammy Award. Gudnadóttir received a multitude of accolades for her work on the “Joker,” directed by Todd Phillips and starring Joaquin Phoenix, including an Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and Grammy. In addition, her body of work includes scores for films such as “Tom of Finland,” “Journey’s End” and 20 episodes of the Icelandic TV series “Trapped,” streaming on Amazon Prime.

Gudnadóttir began playing cello as a child, entered the Reykjavík Music Academy and then moved on to musical studies/composition and new media at the Iceland Academy of the Arts and Universität der Künste Berlin.

She has released four critically acclaimed solo albums: Mount A (2006), Without Sinking (2009), Leyfðu Ljósinu (2012) and Saman (2014). Her records have been nominated a number of times for the Icelandic Music Awards. Her albums are all released on Touch.

She has composed music for theatre, dance performances and films. The Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, Icelandic National Theatre, Tate Modern, The British Film Institute, The Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm and Gothenburg National Theatre are amongst the institutions that have commissioned new works from her. Currently she is curating an exhibit for the opening of the new Academy Museum in Los Angeles.

Gudnadóttir has performed live and recorded music with Skúli Sverrisson, Jóhann Jóhannsson, múm, Sunn O))), Pan Sonic, Hauschka, Wildbirds & Peacedrums, Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Sylvian, The Knife, Fever Ray and Throbbing Gristle, among others.

Brooklyn-born and bred artist Tamar-kali is a second-generation musician with roots in the coastal Sea Islands of South Carolina. As a composer, Tamar-kali has defied boundaries to craft her own unique alternative sound.

2017 marked her debut as a film score composer. Her score for Dee Rees’ Oscar-nominated MUDBOUND, garnered her the World Soundtrack Academy’s 2018 Discovery of the Year Award and has been classified by Indiewire as one of the 25 Best Film Scores of the 21st Century.

2019 was a hallmark year for her work as a composer. In addition to debuting her 1st symphonic commission, she scored 4 films total; 3 which were featured at the Sundance Film Festival 2020. They include Dee Ree’s THE LAST THING HE WANTED, Kitty Green’s THE ASSISTANT and Josephine Decker’s psychological drama SHIRLEY; the latter whose soundtrack was named The Guardian’s Contemporary Album of the Month in June 2020. The 4th film was the documentary JOHN LEWIS: GOOD TROUBLE.

2021 promises a range of projects from opera commissions and a new solo EP. 

Leslie Shatz is an academy award and Emmy award-nominated sound designer whose career spans 50 years. Among the many directors, he has worked with include John Cassavetes, David Lynch, Francis Coppola, Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, Kelly Reichardt, and Kitty Green.

Kitty Green is an award-winning Australian filmmaker. Kitty’s independent feature documentary, ‘Ukraine Is Not A Brothel’ premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2013 and screened at over 50 festivals internationally. In 2015, Kitty’s documentary short, ‘The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul’ premiered at Sundance where it was awarded the Non-fiction Jury Prize. Kitty’s hybrid feature ‘Casting JonBenet’ premiered at the Sundance in 2017 and is currently streaming globally on Netflix. In 2018, Kitty was a Sundance Fellow in the ‘Art of Nonfiction' initiative. Kitty’s first narrative feature, ‘The Assistant’ was completed in 2019 and premiered at Telluride and Sundance. It was released theatrically in the US in January.