Q: What do these four award winners have in common?
A: Music by Michael Montes.

SALES, MARKETING OR INTERNAL PRESENTATION

Gold
AICP 08 Awards Show Open
Thornberg & Forester

Silver
Pop!Tech 08 Open
Trollbäck + Company

Bronze
World Science Festival 08 Open
Trollbäck + Company

NETWORK PACKAGE DESIGN

Silver
Planet Green Network Package
Thornberg & Forester

New film directed by Alexander Olch and scored by Michael Montes.

Richard P. Rogers (1943-2001) was a NYC baby boomer, born to privilege: a Harvard-educated WASP who became a first-rate independent filmmaker and a gifted film teacher. But he was also a tortured, neurotic soul who freely admitted to bring jealous of Steven Spielberg and was simultaneously ashamed of the impulse. Torn between narrow class loyalties and broader professional goals and political values, Rogers found the time to juggle multiple relationships with the skill of a world-class Lothario, but was unable to complete an autobiographical film he had worked on for 25 years. His former student Alexander Olch collages a trove of material, including extraordinary scenes of Rogers’s mink-coated Gorgon-mom, and new fictional sequences with Wallace Shawn.

Opens at THE FILM FORUM NYC June 17th and cities nationwide in July.

Here’s the website.

Here’s the trailer:

Opening night for this year’s World Science Festival celebrated the 80th birthday of E.O. Wilson, America’s preeminent naturalist and a founding father of the environmental movement.

The sold-out event was held at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center.

In keeping with the spirit of the occasion Jakob Trollbäck and Michael Montes created this exquisite “Subatomic Ballet”.

Here is the new AICP Show open, a post-electronic pastoral dreamscape, with visuals by Imaginary Forces.

Now serving New York City for more than 25 years, City Harvest is the world’s first food rescue organization. This year, City Harvest will collect 26 million pounds of excess food from all segments of the food industry, including restaurants, grocers, corporate cafeterias, manufacturers, and farms. This food is then delivered free of charge to more than 600 community food programs throughout New York City using a fleet of trucks and bikes as well as volunteers on foot. Each week, City Harvest helps over 260,000 hungry New Yorkers find their next meal.

We were honored to create the soundtrack for this year’s City Harvest fundraiser:

Here’s how you can help.

We poured out three little gems with Digital Kitchen and Radical Media.

Here’s one of them:

Here’s the opening sequence for TED’s 25th Anniversary Conference held in Long Beach, CA this week.

The annual conference brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

The amazing list of this year’s speakers includes Bill Gates, Oliver Sachs, Seth Godin, Juan Enriquez, Olafur Eliasson and many more.

Music/Sound Design by Michael.  Visuals by Trollbäck and Co.

The site is simple and sleek with the WORK section allowing visitors to see a much wider variety of ads, conference titles and film scores.  The spectacular branding visuals are by Trollbäck and Co.  Check it out here and give us some feedback.

Created totally “in the box”, these experiments in melodic digital distortion (think Brian Eno meets Radiohead) poured out one after another in feverish succession over the course of three months. Mastered by the legendary Bob Ludwig. Special thanks go to Jakob Trollbäck for his insightful art direction and kind support. Available at CDBaby and iTunes.

Michael’s piano piece for the Canon “Journey” spot has become some sort of hit/movement with numerous fans emailing for the sheet music, along with performances and tutorials popping up on Youtube.

Here’s one performance:

An overhead slow tutorial:

And here are a few email selections:

“…First of all, I just want to tell you that I love the music for the new Canon commercial.  I do not currently play the piano, but the song you composed has made me want to learn…”

“…I am playing for a wedding, and the bride demands the Canon Commercial music which I believe is a composition by you. Could you email me the sheet music?”

“….I am a figure skater and would love to skate to it. It is an absolutely beautiful piece…”

“…This is a far out question. But I will ask this anyway. Is there anyway to get sheet music for the piece you did for the Canon Commercial?  I have someone playing some music for me, for a dinner date i am setting up, and i really would love to have this song to be played…”

“…After seeing the Canon commercial containing your beautiful music, it has inspired me to start playing again….after having neglected my piano for almost 15 years…”

“…Let me start by saying I love the score you composed for the Canon commercial.  I listen to it over and over.  My 8-year old son is taking keyboard lessons in school and he’s trying to learn it for me.  He’s still pretty new to the piano and what he has learned so far is close, but not quite right.  Unfortunately my job has taken me overseas and I can’t do much to help him for a while.  I was wondering if it would be possible to obtain a copy of the sheet music to give to him for Christmas…”