MUSICAL ELLIENA MAINTAINS COMPOSURE FOR A WIN
AS soon as Elliena Escott knew she wanted to be a composer she set about learning as many instruments as she could.
Last Thursday her hard work paid off after she was awarded first place in the Queensland Music Festival’s Score It! Junior category, where students across the state compose music to a four-minute animation.
Trinity Lutheran College student Elliena, who is 15, used her intimate knowledge of her 11 instruments – trumpet, piano, ukelele, French horn, saxophone, guitar, trombone, cello, violin , drums and percussion – to help bring the animation to life through music.
Elliena said scoring the Griffith Film School animation had meant spending her free time and composition classes behind her piano and computer piecing it together.
The animation is about a monk who brings peace to the forest by saving a deer from a trap.
Elliena said she added instruments including a ringing bowl to give it a more authentic feel.
“I would love to score movies … it’s what I would like to do as a career,” she said. “Whenever I watch a movie, I listen to the music. I think I love how it enhances emotion and all of the story.”
Elliena was presented with her award by awardwinning Australian composer Cameron Patrick, who wrote the music for Spider-Man: Homecoming, Zootopia and Jurassic World among others.
Elliena rubbed shoulders with Mr Patrick earlier this year after she helped score a short film by PJ Holt, which made it to the semi-finals of an international competition.