Matt Dunkley headshot
Matt Dunkley headshot

Alumni Spotlight: Film composer Matt Dunkley

Intro

If you’ve watched anything over the last few years, you’ve probably encountered the work of UWL alumni Matt Dunkley, who studied at London College of Music in the 1980s. Matt served as conductor, arranger and lead orchestrator on film and television hits like Andor, Enola Holmes 2, No Time to Die, Black Swan, Top Gun: Maverick, Succession and Barbie.

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Matt first caught the music bug at ten years old when he was taken to a Saturday morning concert at Croydon’s Fairfield Halls. 

My family wasn’t particularly musical. There wasn’t much music in the home, and I’d certainly never heard much orchestral music. I remember that concert, being absolutely spellbound by it, and I’ve kind of been hooked ever since."

Matt was drawn to the trumpet, and it was studying this instrument that led to his studying at LCM.

There was a really good energy about the place — it wasn’t one of the bigger colleges. None of us walked around feeling too cocky. We were all hungry for success, which actually created quite a healthy atmosphere and probably prepared us well for the profession."

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Matt Dunkley answering questions

While at LCM, Matt learned to arrange scores for brass ensembles and chamber orchestras. Immediately after university, he spent a year playing in a cruise ship band. 

That was amazing. We toured the Med, went up through the Black Sea and into Russia, which was still behind the Iron Curtain. Really just a fascinating time. It was great fun; I did a season but then musically I think I’d gotten everything I wanted from it. You’d start off doing a jazz cocktail set when we were leaving port, then you’d do dance music, cabaret shows, late night dance music. It was great training, but you’d be on from 6pm to 1am so it was hard work too."

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Upon returning to the UK (and through a contact he’d made at the LCM), Matt started working with Christopher Palmer, a world-renowned Hollywood orchestrator and music producer, who at that time was focused on reconstructing and rerecording classic film scores.

Everything was pencil and paper back then, so I’d do big score layouts for him. If we were working on a film project, I’d put the skeleton of his sketches into these big A3 score layouts and then he’d finish off the orchestration. You had to be incredibly accurate and fast, and I learnt my craft literally looking over his shoulder."

From there, Matt built many connections, mostly as a pop string arranger alongside artists like Melanie C of Spice Girls fame and Sir Tom Jones. During this time, he met Craig Armstrong, a Scottish composer who scored Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. This opened the door for Matt to work on such films as Moulin Rouge and Love Actually.

People started to hear about me, which led to me working with other composers and before you know it, twenty five years later, you’ve got this body of work where people come to you and, if you keep doing good work, the jobs keep coming."

One of his biggest projects was as Musical Director for Judy, starring Renée Zellweger, telling the story of Hollywood legend Judy Garland.

It was the only time I’ve been on a film from the early pre-production stages all the way through to the very end. I got to be there on the shoot, wrote some original music, arranged all the songs, produced a soundtrack album with Renée and a fabulous big band (which got Grammy nominated). I was a real creative partner on that film, and it was just fantastic that Renée went on to win a Golden Globe, BAFTA and Oscar for her extraordinary performance."

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Musician and classical music graduate Matt Dunkley holding a conductor baton and wearing glasses and a pair of headphones

Since moving more into arranging scores, Matt has worked on many big Hollywood movies including entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the James Bond films with singer Billie Eilish.  But what exactly is an arranger?

The composer generates the original material, working closely with the director, and that’s the initial relationship. Then the composer brings in someone like me to translate what they’ve done into an orchestral palette. Some composers can be quite detailed in their mock-up, some of them can be quite elaborate, and my job is just making sure it all works. Other composers are quite abstract and you need to add additional lines and thematic material. Each is interesting in its own way."

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Matt Dunkley talking with students

Lately, Matt has been involved in two of 2023’s biggest cultural juggernauts, Succession and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie, collaborating with Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt. Speaking about the experience of working on such huge projects, Matt says:

It’s gratifying! Sometimes you work on projects that just don’t seem to catch the public’s imagination. Everyone working on Barbie knew it was a special movie, but no one thought it would be as successful as it has been, being the highest grossing Warner Bros. movie of all time. It’s incredibly gratifying that it went so well. "

Succession was such a delight to work on with composer Nicholas Britell and I had the privilege of arranging music for all four seasons.”

Finally, Matt had this advice for any aspiring musicians:

Never stop working. It’s not the easiest profession to make a career in, but what is so refreshing about the music profession is that it is a meritocracy. You know, excellence is truly rewarded, and if you do a good job, you’re going to get the work."

It’s not by fluke that these things happen, everyone gets an opportunity, it’s whether or not you’ve got the skills to capitalise on that opportunity. I still have a fire in my belly, and I want to keep doing it, and no one can tell me that I can’t. It might take a few years but that doesn’t matter, if that’s what drives you then that’s not really work. Musicians are a different breed, and our creativity is a vocation.”

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