Reuven Herman
Composer
Councilor of the Editorial and Sound Branch of The Creators Society
Reuven Herman, Councilor of the Editorial and Sound Branch of The Creators Society, began piano lessons at the mere, adorable age of four. His mother was a piano teacher. It only took baby Reuven one year to get bored with rehearsing the same old songs, and start messing around on the piano, making songs of his own. Reminds me of a little artist named Amadeus. For comparison, at age five, I was the head of a three-person club where our main mission was to eat our boogers. We called it hunting for treasure.
You know what’s really a treasure? Reuven’s passion for music. When his mom received a synthesizer for her birthday, a lightning bolt of passion struck the Herman home. He took to the synthesizer right away, messing around, laying tracks on tracks, and creating original music. Clearly, he was born with the composer bone. And at the ripe age of 12, Reuven was uprooted from Central Ohio, and went straight into living in Jerusalem. “I went from being a small town midwestern ‘aw shucks’ kind of kid to living a very different lifestyle in Jerusalem.” You would think a huge move like that would slow down his passionate pursuit of music, but it did quite the opposite. “I was extremely fortunate...happened to be at the right place at the right time.”
His high school had an amazing music program with great teachers, whereas my high school in San Diego funneled endless money into our failing football team, but who am I to say where money is well spent? Not only did he have a great influence at school, but the conservatory where he took jazz piano lessons was visited by famous jazz musician, Arnie Lawrence.
Lawrence was an American saxophone player who played with all the major jazz players of the time, like Dizzy Gillespie, Julius Hemphill, Thad Jones and tons of other influential artists. Lawrence married an Israeli woman, and after his incredibly successful career in New York he decided to spread the jazz gospel in Jerusalem. Lawrence just happened to check out the same conservatory Reuven attended, and Reuven also just happened to be his first student. Fast forward a few months, and Reuven was attending his workshops three hours a day, four days a week; sitting, talking and jamming. Just having an incredible formative and musical experience. No big deal.
It wasn’t until three years later that Reuven knew music was his true calling. He attended the Red Sea Music Festival and watched an incredibly moving performance that filled him with inspiration. “They were amazing. They were playing, and not a person in the audience was sitting down. You couldn’t just listen to this music and not get up and dance. It had so much power. I was dancing there with everyone else and I was like, yeah, this is what I want to be doing.” Reuven then went to the Rimon School of Music just outside of Tel Aviv. “I started focusing on performance, and thought I was going to be a jazz pianist, just like when I first started playing piano with my mom, all those years ago.” He did not enjoy sitting down and playing the same piece of music over and over again. He needed to be creative, inventive and express himself through creating his own sound.
He transferred to Berklee College of Music, in Boston,Mass., and began to study film scoring and composing. Rimon is part of the Berklee International Network of schools. All those years of training and studying at Rimon really helped him understand the art of composing, and allowed him to experiment within the program. It also got him into conducting. Which was really hard. Like if he knew it was going to be that hard before getting into it, he may have reconsidered. But who knows? We creatives are gluttons for punishment and tend to choose complicated scenarios for the sake of art. Despite the complexities of the art, Reuven continued to study conducting, the entire time at Berklee. After a couple of semesters, Reuven was selected to conduct at the graduation concert. That year they were honoring Howard Shore (Canadian Composer and Conductor, who wrote the epic score for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy) with an honorary doctorate. So, Reuven had the terrifying privilege of conducting The Fellowship of the Ring music in front of Howard Shore himself. Shore even gave him feedback during rehearsal. Hearing this made my jaw drop. The Lord of the Rings took over a large portion of my life, and that soundtrack is absolutely ingrained into the deepest part of my soul. I literally shouted “oh my god” at this point in the interview.
After graduating from Berklee, Reuven knew his ultimate destination was Los Angeles. Within a year in LA, he landed his first composing job. He did a lot of work as an assistant composer and worked on a bunch of short films. This led to working with composer Kevin Kiner, where Reuven assisted on Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Composing for Clone Wars is kind of like every composer’s dream. Lots of composers draw their first major influence from John Williams, who created the iconic Star Wars score. While John Williams inspired Reuven, it was not his Star Wars score that did it. It was the Jurassic Park score. You know, that really famous movie with Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern? Yeah, that score was epic. Anyway, Reuven was overjoyed to write in the same tone and style as one of his heroes.
Reuven also worked on several Jane the Virgin TV episodes. I was, and currently am, totally obsessed with Jane the Virgin, so this was especially exciting to learn. Jane the Virgin has a very quirky, yet soapy style and Reuven totally reflected that in his music. One episode was Alfred Hitchcock themed. Reuven had to emulate the Jane the Virgin style, along with the Alfred Hitchcock sounding horror music. What a fun challenge! I can tell you he did it well, because I’ve seen that episode like three times. Maybe I watch too much TV.
When I asked Reuven what his favorite composing job was, he had two answers for me, “Clone Wars; getting that opportunity was just so fantastic and I learned so much. Being a part of the Star Wars universe was phenomenal.” Well of course that makes sense. As mentioned before, John Williams is a hero to most every composer. His second answer went a little more in depth, “A project that I scored, that I’m very proud of, is a live-action drama short called Ten Thousand Miles, I did back in 2016.” It was a pseudo-autobiographical movie about the director’s experience (Nathan Ellis) as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. He rescued a group of soldiers that were pinned down. This very intense situation led to a very intense movie. Reuven created a dramatic score to capture the intensity of the film. He and the filmmaker also bonded over their own military experience. In Israel, it is required of each citizen to serve 24 – 32 months of military service. During his military service, Reuven had no access to his instruments, but this experience definitely influenced his ability to score a war film.
Currently, Reuven is about to work on a project called Pet Hotel which was created by Claire Dodin, a fellow Creators Society member. Reuven found the Creators Society by chance, meeting another member in an Uber. The Creators Society allowed Reuven to find a community to geek out on music with and network in a very low-key way. “The Creators Society is a really good opportunity to talk to people, overcome any social inhibitions, and just talk.”
Reuven has some great advice for those who want to get into composing, “Don’t despair.” I think that’s great advice for anyone in the arts, honestly. “If it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth it. Keep on pushing and be genuine. Don’t fake it and don’t become cynical because it’s all too easy to become cynical in the entertainment industry…your passion and your authenticity will shine through.” Got it. Don’t be a phony. Thanks Reuven!
Reuven’s music: www.soundcloud.com/greuvenmusic