Modern Classical Guns for Hire: Please Musicworks

Posted on 01. Oct, 2008 by Administrator in Music, Profiles

by Devoe Yates

In our modern world, classical music has been relegated, for the most part, to movie and video game scores and the occasional cerebral night at the local concert hall. It has been a strange and surprisingly tasty evolution of the art, but one would venture to say that there are few musicians these days that long to be known as classical music composers or artists as many seem to pine for Top 40 airplay and to be made the subject of a glossy MTV music video.

Such is not the case with the quartet that comprises Please MusicWorks, an aspiring and creative melding of eccentric and magical minds that, in many circles, have been referred to as the A-Team of modern classical music. The group is comprised of two composers, Mikael Karlsson and Tobias Wagner; the musician contractor, Kiku Enomoto; and the executive producer and business manager, Charlene Huang.

When you have a film, video game, or performance you need scored, and you want the music to reach new heights that’ll take your original work to further realms, they’re the ones to call. Their main drawing power is that they’re a one-stop full service resource; they take care of everything, the composing, the orchestration, the recording, the mixing, and the delivery of some damn fine brain tickling music.

Much of their work to date has been in the European realm, but at long last, their talents have journeyed to this country in search of new projects and new challenges. Recently they journeyed to L.A. to meet with the likes of master film composers Hans Zimmer and Harry Gregson-Williams, and were able to sit with us at h to discuss their pasts and futures over some
healthy slabs of pizza.

The foursome met in New York some years ago when they were all attending various music schools within the city’s border. Though they are a collective, they all still pursue their own solo work. Mikael puts it nicely, “Neither one of us was willing to let go of everything else, we’re all still musicians. We didn’t drop our solo work and that’s very important. I think that feeds us, also. We didn’t want to become a company and then work strictly in that form.”

There is no hierarchy within the group; they all have complete trust in each others abilities, and their own special powers. As with any supergroup, the Justice League or the X-Men for example, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. But as with the Wu Tang Clan, it’s always fun and intriguing to know more about each piece of the puzzle.

Mikael, grew up in Sweden and quit law school when he found a love for musical composition after many nights spent replicating the works of Michael Nyman on an electric piano and an ancient 4 track: “It was huge; it was like an oven (laughs).” He was soon accepted into the Aaron Copeland School of Music in New York where he graduated with both Bachelor and Masters degrees in a mere five-year span. He soon began teaching at the school, and after he posted a rather primitive ad on a crumpled piece of paper there, he found himself working with one of film’s most interesting composers, Christopher Young (Hellraiser, The Hurricane, Wonder Boys, The Grudge).

“He called me up and said I have this short film based on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth and it needs a soundtrack. So, he listened to my music and liked it. He bought a sound card for my synthesizer module as payment, and when he premiered the film, it was the most phenomenal event in front of this enormous New York crowd. I had to go up and play an arrangement of the score and I was so nervous. I have incredible stage fright. So I did it, and I have no memories of performing it, but it went very well (laughs). It was just an enormous experience. And I still work with him.” From there, Mikael’s gone on to score several European features and work with such artists as Lykke Li, Kleerup, and Rob Stephenson.

As for the contracting of musicians for their work, that feat is left to Kiku, an ex-low rider girl from Vegas who used to install her own hydraulics. Kiku is also an accomplished and award winning violinist and clarinet player who’s played with the likes of Jay-Z and Sufjan Stevens. Over the years, she’s played hundreds of gigs with performers from all over the globe, including a very strange event involving Anne Rice: “It was just a random gig. They called and said ‘we need a string quartet,’ so we went out there, and we all had to be dressed in black. It was at this Barnes and Noble and we were playing what could be considered ‘Goth music’. And then we see this coffin coming in, there’s all of these pall bearers coming into Barnes and Noble carrying it, and I’m like, ‘What the hell is going on?’ They put the coffin up on this pedestal, and she comes out of this coffin all well…you know. There were all these Goth people dancing around. It was so weird.”

For the group, Kiku’s in charge of finding the right musicians to play out their compositions and scores, and play them well. Mikael offers, “Kiku always surprises me with the musicians she’s able to get. We’ll tell her the sounds and abilities we’re looking for, and Kiku’s eyes will go ‘Voom!’ She always knows exactly who’ll be right for any given role in the orchestra. She’s very good at it, and most all of the musicians have known Kiku for such a long time. She can talk about things with them in a way that I can’t.” Kiku nods and smiles, “I know a few contractors who are very cold with the people they hire, but I really like to have a personal connection with each of them. They’re people I play with every day, most of them are my friends. If you need a full orchestra, just let me know what you need and I’ll get them for you. I’ll get them at the right place at the right time with the right instruments. Wearing the right clothes, whatever (laughs).”

As for the running the business end of things, and hooking up high-profile gigs, those duties are owned by Charlene, an accomplished violinist in her own right. “I started violin when I was four because I was pretty much forced to. I hated practicing and to some extent, I still do. I’ve always hated practicing, but I love performing. At one point, I made an ultimatum to my mother that I was not going to practice unless she paid me. So, it became a dollar a day. I’ve never made so much money in my entire life as I did when I was four (laughs).” Soon Charlene was leading her high school orchestra, “From 7th grade to the end of high school I was always first chair, but a little known secret was that I couldn’t really read the music. So, of course, the problem would arise when conductors were like, ‘Okay, now we are going back to measure 33,’ and ‘First violins only.’ I was like oh my gosh, where is that in the memory scape?”

Eventually Charlene became music literate and found a true love for playing the violin. “It wasn’t until I was 16 and I saw Eugene Fodor, the violinist, perform. He came to our high school to play and that was the turning point,

‘I’m gonna practice so hard now to just be like him.’ I named my violin Eugene (laughs).” Charlene went on to serve as Hans Zimmer’s assistant and is currently a music coordinator for Dreamworks Animation. Mikael offers, “Charlene is the coordinator of everything and she’s so surprising with creating these incredible contacts that we have.” Charlene also plays and tours with acts such as One Trick Pony and Erinn Williams.

The other composer in the group is Tobias Wagner from Hamburg, Germany. It all began very early for Tobias. “Well, there was a piano in the house and I would daydream at this piano at a very early age, when I was three or four, whenever I was tall enough to reach it. I would make up tunes with two fingers and my mother insisted that I have piano lessons. I was really bad at the whole sight reading thing, so instead I would just listen to the pieces and I would look at the teachers fingers and I would just imitate it from there. So, I was basically a composer from the get go, without really knowing it until I hit 18 or 19. I never quite knew what I wanted to do with my life, but it sort of turned out that music was a thing that I wanted to pursue. It chose me instead of me choosing it.” Tobias took private instruction and eventually ended up at the Manhattan School of Music where he met the rest of Please MusicWorks. He’s gone on to score children’s televisions shows, commercial jingles, and foreign features films.

But it is his collaboration with Please MusicWorks, and Mikael specifically, that has provided some of his most interesting work. “It’s a very unique situation, we’re both very humble as musicians, and we have a lot of respect for each other’s strengths. And we also know each other’s weaknesses. Mikael thinks very melodically whereas I’m more into harmony, texture, and rhtythm, and that naturally goes together pretty well. I’ve collaborated with other composers in the past, but this one is very unique because we can actually sit in the same room, agree to disagree, or simply trust what the other is doing. It’s always a great learning process; I always learn so much in each of these times. When we do write together in the same room, we both come up with something that we both completely identify with. And each other’s strengths enhance the piece to make it something that we could never have done by ourselves. It’s very rare that two people can work on the same piece and not feel like they’re pulling in different directions or one is just serving the other. The process is very rewarding for both of us. We do have to fight for the piano most of the time, though (laughs).”

Recently, Please MusicWorks has scored the soundtrack for the recently released war game for Xbox 360, Bad Company, and are in the process of scoring its sequel, with music so good apparently scenes from the game were built to the music. They also scored the Swedish television film series Labyrint (with no h) and are now ready to fill the film and media world with new and unique sounds. If you have a project that needs the perfect magical kiss of cutting edge music, you might want to drop them a line.

Check out their music or simply solicit them at pleasemusicworks.com

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