Having recently received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Cape Town in July, Jones will deliver invaluable insights into his rich catalogue of award-winning compositions while unpacking music for film, television, gaming and spoken word.
He has worked on numerous well-known and acclaimed films, including Notting Hill, Excalibur, Runaway Train, The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Mississippi Burning, The Last of the Mohicans, and In the Name of the Father, collaborating with filmmakers like John Boorman, Andrei Konchalovsky, Jim Henson, and Michael Mann.
He will deal with the business aspects that define the space and bring up media writing techniques, defining goals and ambitions, how to equip yourself as a writer and map out your journey, as well as aesthetics and philosophy (if we want to touch on those rarefied aspects.
I chatted to Jones on Zoom whilst he was working at Abbey Road on the 40th anniversary of Dark Cystal...
Music Exchange offers the rare opportunity to find answers and ask questions about the Music Industry - local, national and international, and for a frank exchange of information pertaining to skillsets, industry business and practice, with fellow musicians, mentors and eminent Captains of Industry.
I look forward to it with great enthusiasm and excitement.
Thinking about music while mucking out the stables of our rescue horses - nothing like horse sh*t to make one realise that as fertilizer it's more valuable than one is.
Communicating emotion through organised sound.
Helping to make clear the narrative and bringing out the meaning of a scene by writing music with the appropriate emotional weight.
I hope not (laughs).
Am I making the audience feel what the screenwriter and director intend - how can I surpass their expectations and achieve this in an original way?
A bit of both
Leonardo da Vinci, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Alan Turing, My uncle Norman.
Sir Timothy Berners Lee the inventor of the World Wide Web.
The internet has changed communications forever and he has given it to the world freely, with no patent and no royalties due.
My Steinway piano.
As much as possible.
My need to educate the next generation, my interest in the world, in people, in love and death.
Dood by my grandchildren
Stay in bed and take the fluff out of my belly button then make films, paint, and write.
Obsessive, passionate, reclusive, dedicated, confused
The Dream of Gerontius – Edward Elgar
Kind of Blue – Miles Davis
Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd
Bridge over Troubled Water – Simon & Garfunkel
Elgar: Cello Concerto with Jacqueline du Pre & Sea Pictures with Janet Baker
Citizen Kane, The Third Man, Singin’ in the Rain, North by NorthWest, Casablanca, Rear Window, The Battleship Potemkin, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Psycho, Nosferatu, The Spirit of the Beehive, Seven Samurai, Tokyo Story, Cinema Pardiso, Il Postino
A scholarship to the Royal Academy of music, and my mentors.
Myself, my wife, children, grandchildren, dogs, horses and a cat called Tom.
Hope
The award-winning tie, designed by my son Caspar.
CRUCIAL; Slang for very good
Spending as much time with my wife.
Nuturing four children.
Corrupt politicians
Dying before I’ve written my next piece.
Eating a perfect mango in a cold bath on a hot day.
Bill Clinton in his presidential campaign would walk on stage to the Main Theme of The Last of the Mohicans.
I would like to have Vocalise by Rachmaninov.
People matter most.
Here.
I wish that everyone could get a free education, either academic or trade.
And for my generation to leave a legacy for future generations of a plastic-free, unpolluted radio-active-free planet, protected by laws controlling carbon emissions and consequent climate change.