Composer · Film Scorer · Music Researcher
Where sound becomes story — composing for the spaces between words, for the silences that speak.
The Artist
I believe film music is not decoration — it is the emotional architecture of a scene.
My work sits at the intersection of academic rigour and cinematic intuition. Trained at the University of Stellenbosch and the University of the Witwatersrand (MMus, 2025), I have spent years studying how music constructs meaning — how a single chord, a particular timbre, a rhythmic hesitation can shift what an audience believes, remembers, and feels.
As a double bassist in the Pretoria Symphony Orchestra and former Johannesburg Philharmonic player, I know music from the inside of an ensemble — from the collective breath before a downbeat, the weight of a room mid-phrase. This informs everything I compose.
I am currently seeking a fully funded PhD position to advance research at the intersection of film music semiotics, screen scoring, and the narrative function of music in cinema.
The Work
Each cue is a deliberate act of storytelling — scored with intention, shaped by the emotional logic of the scene rather than convention. The portfolio below represents original compositions for film, scored for period drama and chamber ensemble.
Main Showreel
Original Score · Period Drama
From: Belle (2013) · MMus Thesis Practical, 2024–25
A quiet anticipation. Strings speak in the language of period propriety — restrained, elegant, trembling with what cannot be said aloud.
Featured Works
5 compositions
Full score recordings, notation files, and production materials available through the complete portfolio archive.
Access Full Portfolio →Film Case Studies
2025
MMus Thesis Practical · Film Score
Original Score for 11 Scenes · Dir. Amma Asante, 2013
Narrative Concept
Dido Elizabeth Belle occupies two worlds simultaneously — neither fully belonging to either. The music had to carry this duality in its very structure: elegant on the surface, restless underneath. Two contrasting compositional styles were employed to test how dramatically different musical languages could serve the same narrative moment.
“The score asks: what does it sound like to be seen and unseen in the same breath?”
2017
Music Consultant · Feature Film
African Lotus Productions · Parts I & II
Narrative Concept
South African Tamil family life has a specific sonic world — a blend of Bollywood tradition, contemporary township sound, and domestic warmth. The challenge was finding music that felt indigenous to the story rather than imported, that audiences would hear as recognition rather than decoration.
“Music for a community hearing its own story told back to them — that responsibility is not taken lightly.”
2024
Competition Entry · Film Music
Placed 57th / ~300 Submissions · 2024
Musical Approach
An international competition demanding original music for independent film imagery — composed without the support of an established brief, requiring the score to generate its own emotional context. A test of instinct as much as technique, placing within the top quarter of a global field of composers.
“Competition scoring distils composition to its essence: you have only the image, only the music, only the story you decide to tell.”
Academic Research
This research examines how film music constructs narrative meaning through semiotic analysis — using Dario Marianelli’s score for Jane Eyre (2011, dir. Cary Fukunaga) as primary subject. The thesis interrogates how instrumentation, phrasing, and thematic development do not merely accompany a film’s story but actively participate in its telling: shaping character interiority, manipulating temporal experience, and producing meaning that the image alone cannot carry.
The practical component composed original music cues for 11 scenes from Belle (2013) in two contrasting compositional styles, employing leitmotif, orchestration, and thematic development as primary analytical tools rendered in living sound.
Research Interests
The Orchestra
2024 — Present
Section Player — Double Bass
Pretoria Symphony Orchestra
Regular performances under conductors Jaco van Staden and Schalk van der Merwe. Legacy Concert with guest conductor Gerben Brooten (Netherlands) — programme including Bruch, Wagner, and Strauss.
2023
Orchestral Player — Double Bass
Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra
Gala concert honouring former President Thabo Mbeki, conducted by Richard Cock.
2018 — 2021
Section Player — Double Bass
University of Stellenbosch Symphony Orchestra
Under conductors Corvin Martei and Bernhard Gueller. Stellenbosch Chamber Festival (2019) with international performers including bassist Uxía Martínez Botana.
2022 — 2023
Workshop Facilitator & Substitute Teacher
Pretoria High School for Girls
Led double bass workshops and ensemble coaching for string students under Mrs Valerie Hohls (Head of Music).
Begin a Conversation
For commissions, collaborations, PhD inquiries, or film scoring work.
Milan@composerm.com