Penka Kouneva - Composer

MY APPROACH TO FILM SCORING

I harness my talent, imagination, consummate professionalism, and passion to support the director's vision, and embody his/her storytelling into music. I continually strive to refine my understanding of characters and story, and to nurture my musical skills, palette, and expressive power. The crucial part of the collaborative process are the meetings with you, the director, where I play the score-in-progress, you respond with feedback, and ideas flow back and forth openly. From this dynamic exchange, the score grows organically and breathes life into your film. It also conveys to the audience emotional depth, conceptual scope, and hidden subtext that is not in the visuals or dialogue. I strive to elevate both the artistic and the production value of your film tenfold. I am a resource, an anchor, a fundamental support to the filmmakers. With patience and infinite resourcefulness (and a magic wand), I resolve all creative, budgetary, logistical, and political problems that come along. I always deliver tenfold and go beyond the call of duty. In the end, it's all about your FILM being the very best it can be.

AWARDS

Sundance Institute - Film Composers Lab Fellowship

Named by Howard Shore (Academy Award recipient, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy) as "One to Watch"
The Hollywood Reporter, The New Breed: The New Generation of Scoring Contenders

Received Two Ovation Awards and Seven Nominations (including Best New Musical) for "STEEL: John Henry and the Shaker," An Original Blues Musical

ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop

Best Music for Original Music Theatre, North Carolina Theatre Awards for "And Mary Wept"

Grand Prix for Songwriters Under 18, World Music Festival, Tokyo

Aspen Music Festival Composition Fellowships -- Four Years

Aaron Copland Award and Residency

Meet the Composer Fellowship

American Composers Forum - Los Angeles Fellowship

ACF - LA Subito Grant for Career Advancement

North Carolina Artist Fellowship

Mary Duke Biddle Fellowship for Composition Studies, Duke University

BIO

Penka Kouneva is a Sundance Composer Fellow and a rising Hollywood film composer who blends her native Eastern-European influences with modern orchestra, medieval chant, rock, and electronica. Recently, she composed additional score for the video games "PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE FORGOTTEN SANDS," "GEARS OF WAR 3," "A4" and "TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN" working alongside the TRANSFORMERS composer Steve Jablonsky. Her solo scores include the feature film MIDNIGHT MOVIE, the crime drama THE THIRD NAIL, the Sci-Fi Channel creature horror ICE SPIDERS and TV music for FORENSIC FILES on CourtTV, DOG FIGHTS and MODERN MARVELS. Penka has also scored five documentaries, including the environmental film FLORIDA KEYS. Penka's music is known for its emotional, haunting and soulful tone.

Penka is also an Orchestrator and Lead Orchestrator on films: TRANSFORMERS 1, 2, 3, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 3, HOSTEL I and II, Tim Burton's "9", SHERLOCK HOLMES, ANGELS AND DEMONS, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2, YOUR HIGHNESS, the hit TV shows TRUE BLOOD, REVENGE, etc. She has orchestrated on the games GEARS OF WAR 2, 3, SIMS 3, TRANSFORMERS (for Steve Jablonsky), Blizzard's WORLD OF WARCRAFT, STARCRAFT II and DIABLO III (for Neal Acree), and DRAGON AGE 2, LOTR: WAR IN THE NORTH and TELARA (for Inon Zur).

Penka was born and raised in Sofia (Bulgaria), started piano lessons at 6 and wrote incidental music for children's theater shows at 12. In 1984 (age 17) her song won Grand Prix at the Tokyo Young Composers Competition. Upon graduating from the Music Academy in 1990, she ventured out of post-communist Bulgaria and came to the US to make a life for herself as a composer. She had $130 in her pocket and a Duke University graduate fellowship. In 1997, she made history at Duke by receiving the first-ever Doctorate in Composition from this distinguished institution. At Duke, she studied with the celebrated orchestral composers Stephen Jaffe, Scott Lindroth and with the Dutch postmodern minimalist Louis Andriessen. During the 90's Penka enjoyed a successful career as a concert composer. Soon after Penka arrived in Los Angeles in 1999, she began her career as an orchestrator for Emmy-winning composer Patrick Williams while learning the ropes of film scoring. Later that year, Cliff Eidelman gave Kouneva her first scoring break, the AFI thesis short "SHADOWS." Penka Kouneva has since been honored with WorldFest's Platinum Remi for Best Score, the Aaron Copland Award, the Sundance Institute Composer Lab Fellowship, Meet the Composer Award and numerous Artist Fellowships.