Meet Anže Rozman of Bleeding Fingers Music

Today we’d like to introduce you to Anže Rozman.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Anže. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I was born and raised in Slovenia, Europe, a tiny country bordering Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia. From that time, I can remember that my grandparents would take me to classical music concerts of the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra and Opera and Ballet Orchestra of Ljubljana. After each concert, the music would still be resonating in my head.

At first, I thought this was just music I have just heard, but eventually, I realized my brain was improvising and producing music on its own. At around age nine, I started to feel the need to start writing down what was playing in my head. I struggled for many, many years since I didn’t believe myself to have the best ear. But after about ten years, around the age of 18, at the time that I also started my bachelor’s degree music composition and music theory at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana with my mentor Jani Golob. I was finally starting to understand how to write down note by note, what my brain has been producing inside me since my early childhood. During my years of studies at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, I had my works performed by the Opera and Ballet Orchestra of Ljubljana, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra of Zurich and the Symphony Orchestra of the Academy of Music in Ljubljana and also numerous chamber works by musicians worldwide.

I was also interested in writing film music and luckily enough, I was able to write music for two feature films and several short films. In 2013, I started my master’s studies of Scoring for Film, TV and Video Games at Berklee College of Music Valencia, Spain. The program was absolutely amazing since It gave me and my classmates so many opportunities to write for live musicians. In May of 2014, as part of our final project, they took us to Air Studios where we each had an 18 minutes slot to record up to 3 minutes of music with a 54 piece orchestra. For this purpose, I wanted to create something that would have my name written all over it. Something that I could be proud of for years to come. A « show piece » per say. From early 2014 on, I searched the web for video makers that could supply me with a cinematic animation I could score too. After about 100 emails, I finally came across the animator and CGI artist Chris Frost from Berlin, who then produced the spectacular animation for me. It was a passion project for both of us and Chris’ work really inspired me. The piece Polyverse, which was recorded on 21st of May of 2014 at Air Studios, I roughly composed in one evening/night. Oh man, I can still remember how frightened I was to stand in front of these A class musicians at such an iconic recording hall trying to focus and remember how to conduct my own piece of music. It was the first time I had conducted an orchestra. But anyway, the recording went really well!

On another note, Hans Zimmer and Christopher Nolan were at Air Studios doing their score for Interstellar at the same time! Berklee pre-booked Air studios, so Hans and Christopher were locked out of the main recording stage for two days. They did not seem too happy about that ☺ . But in short, that Is how I met Hans Zimmer. In June 2014, I posted the recording of Polyerse on VIcontrol.net forum and luckily enough Hans caught the post and listened to my work and to my astonishment, he loved it! We later chatted on the phone twice, mostly about Gladiator since I was doing a score analysis of it as part of my master’s thesis, but he also mentioned he might have plans for me in the future. Hans’ music had always been a big influence on me, so getting acknowledgment from one of my musical heroes was a very humbling experience for me.

Anyway in July 2014, I graduated with honors from Berklee Valencia and I moved back to Slovenia where I worked as a freelance composer and assistant professor at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana. In the next four years, I worked with the top orchestras, bands and songwriters in the country as a composer and orchestrator. I also scored a lot of TV commercials and films. In 2017, I started feeling a bit artistically trapped in my own little country. I felt like I climbed to the top of the food chain so quickly that there was nowhere higher really to go. In May of 2017, I was also rejected to attend the ASCAP film scoring workshop with Richard Bellis for the fourth year in a row. Every year I just slightly missing the cut. That made me a bit annoyed so I spontaneously wrote Hans Zimmer on Facebook if we could have a phone chat. He agreed and we had a chat a few days later. I knew he was following my work online, so on the phone chat I just blatantly asked him If there is any chance of me coming to work for one of his companies in LA. Fast forward to January of 2018 and I was already in LA working as a full-time composer for Bleeding Finger Music.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Well, I would say that it was a pretty smooth road for me until 2018. I always had a strong goal in front of me and I always knew where I saw myself and what I wanted to achieve. I was always also a bit of a workaholic and had great passion for composing music. Additionally, because I never considered myself extremely talented, I felt like I had to work more than everyone else in order to stick out from the crowd. And I guess it worked. Since 2018, when I moved to Los Angeles from my homeland of Slovenia, I have been dealing with a lot of homesickness which Is like a shadow that follows me everywhere I go. That is still the biggest struggle for me since my move. I miss the peace, quiet and the greenness of nature of Slovenia. I think about it every day. Of course, being away from my family and friends is also very tough.

Tell us about your business/company. What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of as a company? What sets you apart from others?
Emmy and BAFTA-nominated Bleeding Fingers Music, founded by Hans Zimmer, Steve Kofsky and Russel Emanuel, is a joint venture between RCI Global and Extreme Music, the production music arm of Sony/ATV. Bleeding Fingers Music has assembled an exceptional, sonically diverse composer roster, each selected for their unique and complementary skills, to create superlative original film and television scores. At Bleeding Fingers collaboration breeds innovation and working in an environment where the gifted are empowered to be adventurous, experimental, and creatively generous results in extraordinary music.

I wouldn’t say I specialize in any style of music really, but my forte is definitely orchestral music and music with orchestral elements. I also love and have gotten really good at writing for woodwinds! But really, as a film composers, we have to be versatile and use the instrumentation that fits the story of the picture we are scoring for the best. For example, right now I am composing a score for a documentary that uses almost only vocals and synths and those two elements are exactly what the score needs. No less and no more.

In my time as working as a composer at Bleeding Fingers Music, I am probably most proud of scoring BBC’s documentary The Planets and doing additional music for BBC’s Seven Worlds, One Planet, for which Jacob Shea was the lead composer and Hans Zimmer and Jacob co-wrote the theme for. I have always loved BBC documentaries and scoring for them is a real treat. Hopefully, my music makes people feel something while watching these beautiful documentaries about our world and the universe we live in. Hopefully, it inspires someone to go out there and make a real change for the better of our environment, our world and humanity. It might be a stretch, but I hope I am contributing in a tiny way to the wellbeing of our Earth in this way.

Finally, in the last few months, I am also very proud that I have finally finished the first part of my online course focusing on orchestral writing that is going to be available on www.evenant.com sometime soon!

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
I think that the most important quality that pushed me forward is that I have always felt like I was less talented than others, but I never put myself down about it. For example, I was never a great piano player or good at solfeggio. But not being the most talented out there just made me work harder and I had to figure my own way of doing things. So instead of “I am not good enough.” I said to myself: “I will prove to myself that I am good enough.” I was always also extremely passionate about writing music. This mentality made me always go further and further. So with a lot of passion, hard work and a pinch of luck, you can achieve magical things.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.anzerozman.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: anze.rozman
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ARComposer
• Other: https://www.bleedingfingersmusic.com

Image Credit:
Fotos by Ajda Schmidt, Jure Matoz, Adam Lukas, Deirdre Leowinata, Karl Richter, Personal Archive

Suggest a story: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.