LETTER- Hey, I wrote the score

While I appreciate very much the nice short piece on the film "When Love Walks In" [May 12: "Paladin's progress: Local film lands awards"], I must confess that as the composer of the underscore for the movie, I was a bit disappointed that you did not credit me as one of the contributors to the soundtrack, which, as you note, won an award at the Bare Bones International Independent Film Festival.

While I understand that Terri Allard and Carbon Leaf are something of local celebrities, and that they are indeed great musicians, it's a bit disingenuous to credit them mainly for the success of the soundtrack.

In fact, I wrote more than 50 separate music cues for the film, many of them quite lengthy. Not only did I write more music for the film than any one contributor, I dare say that in fact I wrote more music than all of the other contributors combined.

It's a bit like crediting Celine Dion for James Horner's Academy Award for his score to Titanic (though, of course, unlike Celine Dion, Terri Allard and Carbon Leaf do write their own songs).

In spite of my disappointment about not being given credit for my contribution to the film's awards, I do appreciate and thank you for your efforts to acknowledge the talent of local artists and hope that you will continue to do so.

Stephan Prock
Composer, Lecturer
UVA Dept. of Music
Artistic Director, UVA New Music Ensemble

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