Composer Daniel Blumberg on Improvisation and The Testament of Ann Lee

""Music manuscripts are very beautiful looking to me, but they're sort of a bit alien - a bit triggering," says musician and composer Daniel Blumberg, who doesn't read music per se. But with a Bafta and an Academy Award under his belt for his original score for Brady Corbet's The Brutalist , his informal training is clearly without detriment. "When I was a kid, my piano teacher told me, 'You don't need to read music to play it.'""

"Instead, Blumberg, now in his thirties, approaches music experimentally. It's a philosophy that translated well when scoring Mona Fastvold 's latest film, The Testament of Ann Lee. The 18th-century musical biopic, co-written by Fastvold and her partner Brady Cobert, follows the true story of Ann Lee, a devoted member of the Shaker Quaker sect, who many believed to be the embodiment of Christ's second coming."

"The film is weird and whelming in the best way, and Blumberg's score is central in its telling. Remixing old Shaker hymns and spiritual incantations, he creates something immersive and hauntingly emotional. Mantra repetition, singular syllable sounds, hymn-like chorals and a small palette of traditional instruments from hand bells to the celesta keyboard emphasised the true story's lore."

Daniel Blumberg does not read music and adopts an experimental approach to composition. He earned a BAFTA and an Academy Award for his original score for Brady Corbet's The Brutalist. He scored Mona Fastvold's The Testament of Ann Lee, an 18th-century musical biopic about Ann Lee and the Shaker Quaker sect. Ann Lee, an illiterate daughter of a Mancunian blacksmith who lost four children, led the Shakers from Manchester to colonial New York, preaching pacifism, racial and gender equality, and celibacy while facing persecution. Blumberg remixes Shaker hymns and spiritual incantations, using mantra repetition, singular syllables, hymn-like chorals and traditional instruments such as hand bells and celesta to create an immersive, hauntingly emotional score.

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