Prelude to "Psycho" - Synth Mockup Demo

This is a fantasy/adventure orchestral demo piece I recorded live at the Eastwood Scoring Stage at Warner Bros. 

A young warrior rescues her faithful bird companion imprisoned in a dungeon. After leaping off a cliff, they glide over the ocean, only to be found by her troll-like captors. A chase ensues, but they emerge from the battle victorious, flying towards freedom.

Escape Flight

The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers End Credits

Yale Concert Band
Ryan Lindveit, guest conductor
Woolsey Hall, New Haven, CT
April 13,  2018

Don't Be Evil: Fanfare for Band is an irreverent critique of Big Tech neoliberalism, especially as practiced by Google, which celebrated its 20th birthday in 2018. The puzzling motto "Don't be evil" is part of Google’s corporate code of conduct. The idea that one of the world's largest tech companies would have to tell itself not to be evil in the way it handles user data is both wildly hilarious and extremely dark. Given that 2018 was also the 50th birthday of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, fragments of the song "Daisy Bell" (sung by the antagonist computer system HAL 9000 while it’s being shut down) appear in the piece in various guises.

Don't Be Evil: Fanfare For Band

Action cue from Maximum Games and Reverse Interactive's game, Tyler: Model 005.

Tyler: Model 005 - Meltdown (Video Game Soundtrack)

Mysterious Butterflies (2018) by Ryan Lindveit
Sprague Memorial Hall
Yale School of Music
March 8, 2018

Program Notes:
Santiago Ramón y Cajal was a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who is often called the father of modern neuroscience. Among other things, Cajal discovered the neuron and also made meticulous pencil drawings of many of the nerve cells he saw under his microscope—bridging the gap between art and science. He wrote beautifully about his discoveries and was aware that neuroscience held the secrets to unlocking the mysteries of the human psyche. I have been wanting to write a piece related to neuroscience for a long time, and Cajal’s imagery-rich words spoke to me immediately. He calls brain cells “the mysterious butterflies of the soul,” and wonders if their “flapping wings” will someday provide us with the secrets of the human mind. Ultimately, Mysterious Butterflies is a manifestation of my belief that one of music’s greatest powers is to provide a space for listeners to explore mysterious mental terrain.  


Text translated & adapted from Recuerdos de mi Vida (Recollections of my Life) by Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1923):

Who knows the secret of mental life? Like the entomologist hunting for brightly colored butterflies, my attention hunted in the garden of grey matter for cells of delicate and elegant forms: the mysterious butterflies of the soul, whose flapping wings may someday—who knows?—clarify the secret of mental life.

Mysterious Butterflies (eight voices and chamber ensemble)

A Good Girl // Credits

Possibly in Michigan" is a musical about cannibalism in Middle America. Two women are stalked through a shopping mall by a masked man, who follows them home.  There the victims become the aggressors.

"Animal Cannibal" was written for "Possibly in Michigan" by Karen Skladany.

2. Animal Cannibal - Possibly in Michigan. Lyrics/ Music/ Voice: Karen Skladany

Pray Away for orchestra (2018) 
Yale Philharmonia
Julian Pellicano, conductor 
12/6/18, Woolsey Hall, New Haven, CT

Program Notes:
Pray Away is about unpeeling layers of personal shame to find authenticity. I found the idea of self-invention as self-reinvention, articulated by Didier Eribon in his memoir Returning to Reims, particularly inspiring: “Our past is still there in the present. So we remake ourselves, we re-create ourselves (a task that is never finished, always needing to be taken up again), but we do not make ourselves, we do not create ourselves.”

Pray Away (2018) for orchestra

Recorded at Eastwood Scoring Stage, Warner Brothers Studios January 13th 2019. Copyright by Pessi Levanto 2019

Recoil

Drew Mikuska is a film and television composer living and working in Los Angeles, California.  Most recently, Mikuska finished orchestrating and conducting Anton Sanko’s score for the upcoming Netflix feature Fracture (2019). This is his second collaboration with Sanko as orchestrator; their work on Sanko’s score for French feature Amanda (2018) was nominated for “Best Score” at the César Awards earlier this year.  Currently, Mikuska is completing additional composing & orchestration work in television for composer Layla Minoui on Disney’s Vampirina, Anton Sanko on Freeform’s Siren, and Leo Birenberg on Adult Swim’s Tigtone. Recent selected credits include: additional writing, arranging and performing as a vocalist on Dreamworks’s She-Ra and the Princesses of Power for composer Sunna Wehrmeijer; additional writing on an upcoming Dreamworks series for composer Josh Moshier; and acting as scoring assistant for composer Patrick Kirst on Netflix’s hit The Kissing Booth.  Mikuska completed a Masters of Music in Screen Scoring in the Spring of 2017 at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music after finishing a Bachelors of Music in Composition at USC in 2016. During his time at USC, he was awarded the ASCAP Betty Rose Award & Scholarship, which is presented each year to an "outstanding, promising composer participating in The ASCAP Foundation Composer-in-Residence Program at the University of Southern California."  In addition, Mikuska has been selected to participate in a variety of prestigious professional scoring workshops.  He completed a fellowship in the 2018 Los Angeles Film Conducting Intensive under the mentorship of Conrad Pope, William Ross and Angel Velez after taking part in the 2017 ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop with Richard Bellis, through which he was recognized with the ASCAP Foundation Michelle and Dean Kay Award for his achievements.  He also took part in the 2016 NYU/ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop.  During his time in LA, he also has had the privilege of writing for, assisting and interning for several other outstanding film composers, including Joe Trapanese, Jake Monaco, Peter Bateman, Gabriel Mann, Peter Golub, and at Remote Control Productions.  For more info, click here.  To listen to more original music in addition to the highlights below, click here.