Composer Breaks Into Spots.
By JEREMY LEHRER
Composer Krishna Venkatesh has joined jsm/music, New York. Venkatesh comes to jsm from a background as a pop music composer who has been a member of several bands.
Venkatesh incorporates a mix of traditional and electronica influences into his compositions. His diverse musical exploits began when he studied classical and jazz piano at the age of five. After a brief undergraduate stint at Boston’s Berklee School of Music, Venkatesh joined the band Think Tree, which was on the Virgin U.K. label. During Venkatesh’s six-year tenure in Think Tree, the band completed several European tours and opened for Nine Inch Nails during that band’s Pretty Hate Machine tour.
After leaving Think Tree, Venkatesh started El Dopa, a band on the New York-based Conscience label, which released United In States of Narcolepsy. Venkatesh described the music he composed for El Dopa as an amalgam driven by a jazz aesthetic blended with synthesizer programming. As a practical application of his interest in synthesizer programming, Venkatesh was a consultant/sound designer for Kurzweil Music Systems, Waltham, Mass. There he helped in the development of software and "soundware," including Kurzweil’s 2500 hardware series used for sound design and effects.
Venkatesh made contact with jsm in a roundabout manner. When a friend who was testing newly installed equipment at jsm played a Venkatesh composition, Jon Silbermann, jsm’s CEO/founder/composer, heard it and was so impressed that he asked to be put in touch with the composer.
Joel Simon, jsm’s managing director/executive producer, said that Venkatesh had an "edgy, ambitious and stylistically thorough" style that fit in with what he described as jsm’s innovative approach. Simon said Venkatesh would make an easy segue into spotwork, since he had a track record for groundbreaking musical compositions. "All that he has done musically in the past only lends itself to fantastic work for spots," Simon said, adding that Venkatesh would fulfill clients’ desires "to hear something that they haven’t heard before."
Venkatesh joined jsm because he felt the company encouraged experimental and non-traditional approaches to spot composition: "This seems to be the company to be at if you’re trying to push the envelope," he said. He also liked the "very supportive" atmosphere at jsm. "Even when we have internal competition for a spot, everybody is really cool about giving advice that you wouldn’t think of," Venkatesh said. "Jon and Joel trust their writers. Once you get a concept and get going with it, they don’t interfere with how you see things."
Venkatesh said he was comfortable composing in styles ranging from acid jazz to orchestral, and quipped that the only genre he couldn’t compose was country music. He cited an eclectic group of influences including Aphex Twin, John Coltrane, Béla Bartók and Dmitri Shostakovich. Other influences include the over-the-top music of "Bollywood"—India’s equivalent to Hollywood films—and Talvin Singh and Asian Dub Foundation, who incorporate traditional South Asian musical motifs into contemporary electronica structures.
Since joining jsm, Venkatesh has already scored a few spots, including BMW’s "Stills" via Publicis/Bloom, Dallas; Hall’s "Skiing" via J. Walter Thompson New York; Einstein Heart Center’s "Twice as Long" via Mangos Inc., Malvern, Pa.; and Cigna’s "Postcards" via DDB Worldwide, New York. On the last spot, Venkatesh enlisted the talents of his brother, who played guitar and bass for the piece.
Having done most of his earlier composing without any visual constraints, Venkatesh said he was intrigued and inspired by the discipline of spot composition. "The thing I’m always looking for is new stimulus," he noted. "Writing to picture now is like jamming with a three- or four-dimensional character, as opposed to another musician. It’s definitely influencing the way I look at how things fit together."
Venkatesh has also scored two independent films: Chick Girl, a short film featured at the ’97 Toronto International Film Festival, and Squeeze, a film about inner-city gang violence in Boston. For Boston’s Maritime Museum, Venkatesh created the sound programming for an interactive kiosk that transformed traditional nursery rhymes into hip-hop and techno songs.
Venkatesh said he would continue to produce and compose non-spot music.
Jury Presidents Named For The One Show 2025
The One Club for Creativity has announced the global creatives from around the world who will serve as jury presidents for The One Show 2025.
These creatives will lead judging for each discipline, and have a vote on the work.
Confirmed One Show 2025 Jury presidents, by discipline, are as follows:
--Brand-Side/In-House: David Lee, CCO, Squarespace, New York
--Branded Entertainment: Malcolm Poynton, Global CCO, Cheil Worldwide, London
--Creative Use of Data, Creative Use of Technology: Nancy Crimi-Lamanna, CCO, FCB Canada, Toronto
--Cultural Driver: Bianca Guimaraes, partner, ECD, Mischief, New York
--Design: Liza Enebeis, creative director, partner, Studio Dumbar/DEPT®, Rotterdam
--Direct Marketing: Vicki Maguire, CCO, Havas London
--Film & Video: Javier Campopiano, global CCO, McCann Worldgroup & McCann Global, Madrid
--Gaming: Taj Reid, global chief experience officer, US CCO, Edelman, New York
--Integrated, Experiential & Immersive: Chris Beresford-Hill, worldwide CCO, BBDO New York
--Fusion Pencil: Walter T. Geer III, CCO, Innovation North America, VML, New York
--Green Pencil: Barbara Humphries, ECD, The Monkeys, Sydney
--Health & Wellness, Pharma: Wendy Lund, chief client officer, WPP, New York
--IP & Product Design: Ronald Ng, global CCO, MRM, New York
--Moving Image Craft & Production: Irene Kugelmann, chief creative officer, DDB Group of Companies Germany, Berlin
--Music & Sound Craft: Joel Simon, CCO, JSM Music, New York
--Out of Home, Print & Promotional: Kainaz Karmakar, CCO, Ogilvy India, Mumbai
--Public Relations: Patricia Ávila, regional director for Latin America, Ágora, São Paulo
--Radio... Read More