FILM COMPOSER ROBERT GULYA

Mental Ward Films is honored and privileged to have a very well respected and award winning composer who will be working on our soundtrack for "Bamboo Shark" with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra!

Here at Mental Ward Films, we listened to over a hundred demos from film composers. However, we found one that fit our criteria well. If you’ve ever listened to film music and it somehow actually brought you to a place you never knew of before… somewhere magical… then you might have an idea as to what Robert Gulya will be bringing to our film.

Robert Gulya was born in Budapest in 1973 into a family of musicians. His father is a jazz pianist and music has been the center of Robert's life since early childhood. He studied piano and composition at the Budapest Conservatory and received his summa cum laude degree in composition and music theory in 1997 at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in Hungary and later at the Academy of Music in Vienna, Austria.

He has been named one of the most promising composers of his generation and honored with various national and international scholarships and awards, including:

1995 - The Grand Prize of II. Prix Mercure at the International Vienna Summer Academy of Music.

1996 - The Albert Szirmai Award of the Academy of Music, Budapest.

1996 - 3rd Prize at the International Festival of Monteverdi Choirs Composition Competition.

1996 - 1998 Eötvös Scholarship of Hungary- the Alban Berg Foundation scholarship.

1997 - 3rd Prize at the "In Memoriam of Zoltán Kodály" First International Composers Competition in Hungary.

2000 - Fulbright Scholarship, attending the Film Scoring Advanced Program at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, where he studied with such prominent teachers as Christopher Young, Leonard Rosenman, Elmer Bernstein and David Raksin.

Robert has also recorded his film scores at Paramount Studio in Hollywood and at George Lucas' Skywalker Studio.

Since 2002 he has been writing music for commercials throughout the World for some of the biggest commercial agencies including McCann Erickson, Grey, BBDO, Publicis, Leo Burnett, Lowe GGK, Euro RSCG, J. W. Thompson and Y & R.

In 2004 he composed and conducted the orchestral score for the American feature film "Truce", directed by Matthew Marconi, starring with Buck Taylor, Brad Johnson and Academy Award winner, George Kennedy. The score was recorded with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra.

Now, we welcome Robert Gulya into our Mental Ward Films Family and look forward to the magic he will be providing to our film, “Bamboo Shark.”

Want more? Go to www.robertgulya.com to learn more about this amazing composer, see how he's being compared to John Williams, and even listen to some samples of his work!