Composer open to interpretation

Everything else goes on hold and the hours can be long and unpredicatable when composer Victoria Kelly takes on a new project. Picture / Greg Bowker

Writing the music for a horror film can turn you into a monster.

"I'm like a zombie," says composer and arranger Victoria Kelly, 33, whose biggest project this year was Jonathan King's comedy-horror, Black Sheep.

"I'll walk out of my bedroom into my office in my dressing-gown, stay there for 12 hours then stagger to the fridge for something to eat. I have to spend a week learning how to have conversations again."

Never mind she's about a month from going into labour - for the past few months, she's already been in labour, working up to 20 hours a day on everything from soundtracks to awards ceremonies and drum'n'bass gigs.

In her Grey Lynn home office, you'll find a piano, a computer and a fold-out couch for intermittent naps.

It was Kelly's job to arrange Shapeshifter's music so the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra can join them in playing it on Saturday night, a role that should bridge the gap between the classical and clubbing crowds.

It's an impressive feat in that the context is so out of whack. Shapeshifter fans won't be dancing to their favourite act in a dark club but within the grand St James as strings, wind instruments and brass flesh out the songs.

"You wonder how it would work because the two kinds of music are so seemingly far away from each other," says Kelly.

"But there's all sorts of things I hear in their music that suggests an orchestral sound. Shapeshifter's music can sound enormous."

She's also responsible for arranging the music at the upcoming Apra Silver Scrolls, a job that will truly test our top songwriters when their stuff is performed by other people. Frequent collaborator Joost Langeveld is also helping this year.

But her biggest priority has been writing 70 minutes of music for the 88-minute Black Sheep, which she worked around a minimal score for Robert Sarkies' Out of the Blue about the Aramoana massacre.

"The difficult thing is that music is quite secret. I'm the only person who can hear what it's going to come out like in advance so really, so much of that relationship is based on trust. The director has to know that I've worked out what he wants."

Kelly says she's always been one to consult her directors, on New Zealand films including Fracture, The Locals and Toy Love (with Langeveld).

Last year she worked on the BBC/South Pacific Pictures TV series, Maddigan's Quest. As a former vocalist for Strawpeople, and ex-member of Greg Johnson and Anika Moa's bands, she also has a good handle on pop.

Because she's often working on scores for others, her job is to realise music's potential. As an arranger she's the audio equivalent of a landscape gardener, someone with a vision who can complement rather than detract from the natural beauty of her subject.

Her love of writing film soundtracks came during a music degree in the mid-90s, when she got a chance to write the music for Anna Reeves' short film, La Vie en Rose.

"I had an epiphany when I finally saw the pictures against the music. It was an absolutely rapturous experience."

She took off to California for a post-graduate year studying film music, then launched into a sleepless career. Thankfully, she only has to worry about waking her husband, a cellist in the string group the New Zealand Trio, when she jumps into bed at 3am.

"He's the only person who can understand what I do and the crazy hours I work. I always think I've got to find a way to make my life more balanced but there never seems to be."

She can be busy one month, quiet the next. Deadlines can be murderous and artists unpredictable - despite hours of preparation going into an arrangement with Che Fu at last year's Apras, he pulled out at the last minute.

It can also be terribly isolating. She'll spend hours staring at a computer screen, sitting at the piano or watching films hundreds of times, ignoring the phone if it rings.

"I wake up dreaming the music I was writing yesterday going over and over, terrible ear worms. It really does take over everything. At the beginning of a project I have to ring up everyone I know and say goodbye for three months. It's like I'm leaving the country."

LOWDOWN

* Who: Victoria Kelly
* What: New Zealand composer and arranger
* Go to: Shapeshifter and the APO at the St James, Saturday, featuring Kelly's arrangements; the New Zealand films Out of the Blue, (opening October 12) and Black Sheep (opening 2007) to hear her film scores. Both films premiered at the Toronto Film Festival this month.