BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
For Alex Baranowski, The Windermere Children wasn’t an ordinary scoring project.
Though the BBC/Wall to Wall production may have presented an excellent opportunity for the screen composer to expand his existing body of work, it was a personal connection to the script that made this experience an exceptional one.
The film shares the story of orphans of the Holocaust, who were sent to Lake Windermere in England to begin to recover from the traumas of World War II. And in Alex’s soundtrack, we can hear echoes of his own family’s past.
The London-based composer tells us what The Windermere Children means to him. His music was recorded with the London Metropolitan Orchestra, but uses some instruments particularly close to his heart.
Alex is a Tony Award-nominated composer whose previous work for film includes McCullin, Nureyev, A Christmas Carol, and The Departure.
Hi Alex, thank you so much for taking the time to chat about your score for The Windermere Children. Why did you want to take on the task of composing the soundtrack for this film?
Thanks very much for asking! As soon as I read the script, I was absolutely gripped by the story and how it was going to be told. It was so moving from the very beginning and it felt natural to start putting down those feelings to music, so I was over the moon to be approached to write the score.
I was reading in a statement that it was the “most emotional journey” you’ve been on as a composer. Can you tell me a little about what these emotions were, and how you managed these emotions while you were undertaking your work?
I felt a very personal connection to the story. The film is about Polish children liberated from Nazi concentration camps and how they adjusted to life in the ‘real’ world after the war. My grandparents were also Poles liberated from forced labour camps; although they were sent to Siberia by Stalin. They tried to make sense of their terrible experiences by writing poetry, music and painting.
The film gave me the opportunity to revisit their creative work and see their first-hand experiences in a whole new light — and really helped to understand what the children in the film were going through.
It’s really shocking, thinking about what those people so close to you had experienced — especially at such a young age!
When you took on the job, did you know this would be such a powerful experience for you? And how did your own connection to the story affect the musical output itself?
I certainly hadn’t anticipated what an experience it would become!
The score for me was about finding the emotional heartbeat of the children and how those emotions could develop through the score. My grandfather was an incredible musician and I inherited all his instruments. So my first reaction was to pick up his instruments and start playing — one of which, an accordion, he bought after liberation from Siberia in 1942.
So, straight away, this felt different to anything I’d ever written before.
What has composing this soundtrack taught you about your own family?
It really made me want to find out more.
Watching scenes from the film of children putting down their inner feelings into a painting, and having my grandmother’s huge oil paintings in my studio as I wrote — one of which depicted some rather harrowing images of sick children — really made me realise how much my grandparents, like so many others, found solace in painting and writing music and poetry to deal with the terrible things they saw.
It brought a lot of meaning and responsibility to what I do now as a composer!
Taking such a personal approach to your score, did you compose your music away from the screen in order to concentrate on the message you wanted to convey? Or was it very much a combination of you working closely with the vision and cues within?
Of course, the foremost job of the composer is to serve the film and the vision of the director first. It was about channelling the emotions and musical themes I’d found, and making them work in the context of the story.
You just can’t be precious about your work when working on a film where so many different elements are coming together to tell the story.
As soon as the edit was locked, and myself and the director discussed ideas, we seemed to find a great rhythm and the musical form developed relatively quickly.
One of the first scenes I scored was the long sequence at the end, and once that felt right, the world of the rest of the film seemed to fall into place.
What went through your mind when you first saw the finished product — your music set to The Windermere Children as their stories came to life on the screen?
The first time I saw the completed mixed/graded film was at a screening alongside the cast and crew, and the actual people the film was based on — now all in their 90s! Seeing them being so emotional over the story, and hearing them speak afterwards, was something I’ll never forget. It was a very humbling experience.
In what ways do you hope your score will resonate with audiences?
My aim for the score was always to help tell the journey of the children without overpowering the film. I’ve tried to tell the story of the very real characters through music. You might notice how the beginning of the score is very delicate and restrained, whilst towards the end it is allowed to breathe and soar a little as the characters grow in confidence and build relationships.
If it helps the viewer feel more emotionally connected to the characters, then I’ve done my job properly. Of course, if the music is doing its job very well, you shouldn’t really notice!
Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
I’m just very happy that audiences are listening and enjoying it!
I’ve also been working on an album of my own material, partly inspired more by my grandparents’ own creativity. So hopefully, I should be getting that recorded over the coming months!
Listen to Alex’s soundtrack to The Windermere Children on streaming platforms.
Images supplied.
