Munich-born, L.A. based composer Kubilay Uner has bounced around the planet and through every musical genre, which explains a thing or two about his individual approach to music. With numerous feature film scores and two TV pilots to his credit, Kubi is as comfortable in the concert hall as he is on the dubbing stage. “Whether the music is part of a film or stands on its own, my goal is to deliver an intense experience, one that completely immerses and transforms the listener.” To help intensify the listening experience, Kubi started building his own instruments: A fretless banjo built from a cookie tin, a construction of 20-foot strings suspended over oil cans, a gamelan-style instrument made of marble tiles, and all manner of found objects that were never meant to make music. “It’s amazing how expressive and unusual the simplest object can sound if you just record it right.” Some highly unorthodox processing techniques further enhance the transportive character of Kubi’s music: Choir parts filtered through the sound of ocean waves, a live singer duplicating the intricate micro-tonal fluctuations of time-stretched vocal parts, water bubbles processed to sound like a steam-driven, retro-futuristic synthesizer. “In order to have the right impact, every process has to sound absolutely natural, as if there were no process at all.” Yet, traditional instruments remain ever-present in Kubi’s work. He plays piano, bass and guitar. In addition to writing for film and television, Kubi has acted as a record producer and arranger for artists that range from soul legend Bobby Womack to Mexican-American chanteuse Perla Batalla. Active in the Los Angeles contemporary music scene, Kubi produces a series of composer salons, with presenters ranging from Billy Childs to Mort Subotnick, from Don Davis to Anne LeBaron and William Kraft. These stylistically diverse salons are yet another expression of Kubi’s conviction that “good music can only happen when you mix things up.” Kubi studied composition with Johannes Fritsch and Klarenz Barlow at the State Academy of Music in Cologne, Germany; with Luigi Nono at a Centre Acanthes workshop in France; and with Mort Subotnick, Fredric Rzewski and James Newton at CalArts where he earned a Master’s Degree.
- Stay Cool (2010) Polish Brothers with Winona Ryder, Hillary Duff
- See What I’m Saying (2009) Robert DeMayo, T.L. Forsberg, Bob Hilterman,
- This African Life (2008) Lisa Thompson
- The Tomorrow Man (2001) Corbin Bernsen, Jeanne Cooper
- The Young Unknowns (2000) Devon Gummersall, Eion Bailey, Leslie Bibb, Arly Jover
- Wanted (2000) Michael Sutton, Tracey Gold
- The Night Caller (1999) Rob Malenfant with Shanna Reed, Tracy Nelson
- The Killing Grounds (1999) Kurt Anderson with Anthony Michael Hall,
- Cupid (1998) Doug Campbell with Zach Galligan, Ashley Laurence, Mary Crosby
