This week I’m in residency at the International School of Beijing. Normally on a residency I conduct performances of my own music (often commissioned specially for the occasion) and teach composition and technology to students (often based on the works I’m in residence to conduct, so that my pieces become a model for the students’); but this trip is something completely different, and quite relevant to the Maritime project.

I’m here to teach non-musicians how to write film music. The school has a lot of outstanding film students who can get extra marks for ‘creativity’, so their teachers are encouraging them not to use stock music but to compose their own. Which is difficult if you don’t play an instrument, let alone often write your own music.

So I’ve created an interactive iBook for Mac or iPad which gives students a bunch of ideas, and this is what we’ll be doing in hands-on workshops all week… it’s a good time to think about what the filmic soundtrack in the ICE might look like in the new warships pavilion, too…