Reel

The Heavy Universe

Keep the Momentum!

Fight Or Flight

Stumble Shuffle - 130 BPM - Big Band Kitsch - Full

Bubbling Tension - 95 BPM - DC Gogo - Full

Silly Swagger - 140 BPM - Light Orchestral Kitsch - Full

Gogo Non Stop - 170 BPM - DC Gogo - Full

Original Soundtrack for the film Exophilia, written and directed by Jun Shimizu.

Violent Probe+Confucius Say

Small Talk+Baby Diaper Goo

Alien Climax+The Meaning Of Everything

Exophilia (Draft 1)

Everything Means Nothing, But...

Commissioned by the Seattle Youth Symphony
Performed March 12th, 2017 at Benaroya Hall

Loosely, this piece is a journey from chaos to unison. True to the title, many things collide during that journey: different emotions, different textures, different stylistic elements. It starts with the entire orchestra playing every note in the chromatic scale at once, a sort of “big bang” that launches the piece into a loud, densely orchestrated beginning. Fragments of a melody are dispersed throughout, sometimes shining through the thick texture and sometimes being overwhelmed by it. The heaviness of the orchestration eventually melts away slightly, giving way to a more fluid sound, and the melodic fragments from the beginning can be heard again briefly in the brass, fighting against the dissonant strings and winds that hint at things to come.  
Any respite to be found is short-lived, however, as tension builds once more and the messy chord that initiated the piece is heard yet again. The percussion section takes over, underscoring—with the help of the piano, harp, and strings—an atonal bass trombone solo, which gives shape to the melody that had struggled to take form in the beginning while still being melodically uncertain in itself.  The trombone then passes the baton to the piano, which tries even harder to give legs to the elusive theme, but in the end only fragments it further as the rest of the orchestra returns for a wild, militaristic march. Mocking winds and strings battle against brutish brass interjections until everything swirls together into madness, the struggling melody fighting against the march, in turn fighting against the jeering rhythmic figure of the winds. 	Finally, everything coalesces and then dissolves, and for the first time, the melody that has fought to be heard since the beginning is heard in full in an alto flute solo. This relief bolsters the rest of the orchestra to a unified finale, where eventually every member of the orchestra is found playing the same figure together just before the (perhaps surprising?) ending.

Conducted by Stephen Rogers Radcliffe

Collide-o-Scope (Live at Benaroya Hall)

I decided to give a facelift to an incredibly underrated game with an incredibly underrated soundtrack: Gauntlet Dark Legacy. It goes without saying that I do not own the rights to this music; just a fan who likes to orchestrate!Hopefully someday I can do some more of this 3-hour-long bit of magic!
Thanks to Chaz Bommarito for the mixing!

Gauntlet Dark Legacy (Re-orchestrated): Main Menu/Sumner's Tower

Top 10 Soundtracks at Berlin International Film Scoring Competition 2018.

Link to film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfSP2q6QNVk

"The film for this year BIFSC is 'Sputnik', a Maxim Zhestkov short film about the evolution of an extraterrestrial mind, and its journey to the light. The project was created with the help of industry leading artists from all over the world, including: United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Russia. Production of the full CG animated short film took a year and a half."--www.bifsc.org

Written, Directed & Produced by Maxim Zhestkov
Music composed for the Berlin International Film Scoring Competition 2018

Sputnik OST

The third of 3 pieces commissioned by the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra for the 2018-2019 season.

Winner of the inaugural 2018 Classical Evolve Competition
Stilian Kirov, music director

Fight Or Flight (Full Version)

Created for July 2019's Mini Jam, for the game Greilocks.
https://holliedare.itch.io/greilocks

Underwater Fantasy

The final recording session of my Masters program with the Seattle Film Institute, a 52-piece orchestra recorded at Bastyr.

Son of "Adventure: the Movie"

My demo showcasing sounds from a really exciting new sample library of extended saxophone techniques by the talented Nick Torretta, available here:
http://nicktorretta.com/virtual-instrument-libraries

Short, Sweet, and Also an Elephant

The first movement of my suite for Violin and Mandolin duo.  It is an ancient Greek melody changed to suit both an Irish Jig and, later, a wilder modern classical feel.

Violin and Mandolin: Ben Ash
Engineered by: Ethan Hein
Mixing and Mastering: Sam Tall

Suite no. 1 for Violin and Mandolin-I. Seikilos' Jig

I make music for film, games, and the concert hall! Notable credits include being an additional music composer on Star Wars Outlaws and serving as the 2018-2019 Illinois Philharmonic Composer-in-Residence.

Ben Ash

Pinned to spotlight

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