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THE SCL ANNOUNCES MENTEE SELECTIONS FOR THE
LA MENTOR PROGRAM 2021-2022
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The SCL Mentor Program serves as an introduction to the screen music industry for selected SCL Associate members. The SCL LA Mentor Committee has made its final selections from a large number of applicants, and welcomes the following Associate Members into the LA Mentor Program for 2021-2022. The committee would also like to thank the many applicants who took the time to submit and encourages them to do so again in the future, should they remain eligible. They should also consider applying to the NY Mentor Program, which is accepting submissions till next Monday, October 11.
The program runs from October 2021 through March 2022, with a break for the holidays.
The mentors are thoroughly looking forward to sharing their experience and expertise with the SCL LA Mentee Class of 2021-2022.
Congratulations to all! |
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 Sturdivant Adams is a recipient of a 2020 ASCAP Morton Gould Award and a two-time nominee of the Hollywood Music in Media Awards – in 2020 for Aura and in 2019 for Between the Shadows. His debut feature film score for the period adventure romance drama Prisoners of Paradise (AMG International Film) was recorded at Abbey Road Studios and is due for release in late 2021. Films he has scored have screened at festivals around the world, including the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival. Also passionate about concert music, Sturdivant’s Symphony 2 was commissioned by Warsaw’s Polin Museum and premiered in 2019 by the Sinfonia Varsovia. He has worked as an arranger for several Grammy-nominated jazz artists including Ambrose Akinmusire and Eric Harland. He holds an MPhil in Music Composition from the University of Oxford (2018), an MM in Screen Scoring from USC Thornton (2019), and a BA from Columbia University (2016). |
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 Santiago Amézquita is a music composer and producer from Bogota, Colombia whose passion for film music led him to study and explore music in service of visual arts. He recently graduated from the MFA program of Music Composition for the Screen from Columbia College Chicago and his main instrument is the guitar. His works include a variety of styles that can go from modern electronic to fully orchestral. As a composer, he worked on one feature film, several short films, documentaries, and animation projects that have been premiered at festivals like Nowness and LA Film Fest. |
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 Alex Brinkley’s eclectic background started in Seattle playing saxophone and guitar. Inspired by Seattle’s indie-folk scene, he began writing songs, built a home recording studio, and produced local bands. While writing music is his focus, Alex is a multi-instrumentalist, as well. He has played tuba alongside the Boston Pops, saxophone with Bernard Purdie and Donny McCaslin, and even in a traditional Zimbabwean marimba ensemble. For several years, Alex worked in live sound and as a marching band sound designer, but it wasn’t until his time at Columbia College Chicago that he focused his experiences into a single career; scoring for visual media. Since then, he has scored over twenty projects including shorts, features, and video games. Alex received his Masters in Music Composition for the Screen in May 2021 and currently lives in Los Angeles. |
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Theron Kay is a Japanese-American composer from San Jose, CA. Theron began his scoring career in television, composing for shows on ESPN (Snoop & Son, A Dad’s Dream) and Fox Sports (The Evolution of Punk). Following his move to Los Angeles, Theron attended Cal State University Northridge where he earned the Paltsey Scholarship Award. While at Northridge, Theron obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Music Composition for Film & Media and then continued on to USC’s prestigious Screen Scoring program. There, he studied under a plethora of industry veterans including Pete Anthony, SCL Board Member Garry Schyman, and Laura Karpman. On the big screen, Theron has contributed music to films with composers Michael Kramer, Scott Glasgow, and Patrick Kirst. In addition to his scoring projects, Theron is an in-house composer at Eternal Music Group where he wrote music on Marvel’s WandaVision trailer campaign.
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 Ursula Kwong-Brown is a Los Angeles-based composer and arts technologist whose music pushes boundaries and defies easy categorization. Hailing from New York City, she began playing and writing music at the tender age of eight, eventually mastering the piano, viola, violin, voice, harp, and ukulele. An accomplished classical/new music composer, her work has been hailed as atmospheric and accomplished by The New York Times and performed at Carnegie Hall, Miller Theatre, le Poisson Rouge, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery in London. She’s won numerous prizes, commissions, and residences from ensembles and festivals across the country and around the world. In collaboration with her partner Danny Erdberg, a Broadway sound designer, Ursula has begun writing music for film, theater, and multimedia. Recent credits include a short silent film score commissioned by Access New Music, and a video art collaboration with noted Japanese visual artist, Akiko Nakayama. Upcoming projects include a new opera, several concert and orchestral commissions, and an upcoming LA theatrical production of King Lear, starring Joe Morton. |
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 Alexander Mansour is a composer, pianist, and cellist.
As a composer, Alex’s music has been performed by the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, the USC Thornton Symphony, the American Youth Symphony, and the Notre Dame Symphony Orchestra. Most recently, Alex scored a documentary for director Robert Weide, Vonnegut:
Unstuck in Time – distributed this fall 2021 by IFC Films. Alex just graduated from the USC Thornton School of Music with a Masters in Music Composition, where he studied with Professor Donald Crockett. As a pianist, Alex arranged and played for Arturo Sandoval’s Christmas At Notre Dame, performing with him at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2018. He attended the 2019 BANFF International Workshop for Jazz and Creative Music, a program helmed by Vijay Iyer and Tyshawn Sorey. As a cellist, Alex serves as principal of the American Youth Symphony. He has studied with Katinka Kleijn (CSO) and during an exchange in London, Richard Lester (Royal College of Music). |
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 Nicoletta Nomicou is a composer for film and video games, orchestrator, and classical pianist from Athens, Greece. Her interest in music traces back to when she was just 6 years old, listening to and trying to play by ear what her mother played at the piano. By the age of 10, Nicoletta was already composing her own pieces and performing for large audiences. She graduated from USC’s Screen Scoring Master’s program with the Joe Harnell Award, awarded to the student with the “most outstanding performance.” Before USC, Nicoletta graduated Summa Cum Laude from Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she pursued a dual degree in Film Scoring and Contemporary Writing and Production, and a minor in Video Game Scoring. She was the 2020 recipient of the Georges Delerue Memorial Scholarship Award, the highest Film Scoring Scholarship offered to “senior student of extraordinary talent” in memory of the Oscar-winning composer. She also received recognition as the 2020 winner of the Commencement Processional Composition Competition, giving her the honor to have composed Berklee’s 2020 graduation march, Walk of Pride, and won the third prize of the Krakow Film Scoring Festival, Young Talent Award 2021 with her re-score of the Netflix series, The Witcher. Nicoletta is an Academy Gold 2020 Alumna, a highly selective program hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She was mentored by award-winning composer Blake Neely, for whom she is currently working. |
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 Marissa Rene is a Los Angeles-based composer who experiments with sound design, self-recorded vocals, and compelling sonic textures to create modern scores for film and other media. When it comes to her music, she loves utilizing happy accidents and an out-of-the-box approach. After being accepted into the NYU workshops for film, television, and video game scoring in 2018, she went on to pursue her master’s in composition for the Screen at Columbia College Chicago, which she has recently completed. As a graduate student, Marissa collaborated on student films, documentaries, and video games. Outside of media music, she has also been commissioned to write contemporary concert works, one of which involved a kitchenware percussion section! Following an Italian premiere, her piece, Anatomy of the Infinite Machine, was performed on tour and has seen several Livestream, festival, and university performances. Marissa currently works with Jesi Nelson and Heather McIntosh as a composer assistant and does commercial composition work for a music house with locations in New York and Santa Monica. |
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 Kevin Robles has been equipped with a diversified perspective that is communicated through his work. Having experienced many different cultures first-hand has taught him to approach each project from multiple perspectives. He graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2020 with a degree in Film Composition and a minor in Video Game Scoring, Kevin has since been involved in projects such as Netflix originals Someone has to Die and Minions of Midas. Kevin’s has also composed music for Netflix’s short film Divinity Streak, Toro de Oro, and the award-winning documentary Cuban Earth. He has also had his music placed in reality shows such as 90-day Fiancé and LA Fire and Rescue. |
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 Zoë Lustri is an indie singer-songwriter and composer
from Austin, Texas. Her devotion to music sprawls across many different genres and media. She began her life as a songwriter at the tender age of 5 years old. From then the ball was rolling and it hasn’t stopped. She loves the collaborative nature of music and songwriting, and always jumps at the opportunity to work with new people. Zoë has
a Bachelor’s Degree in Film Scoring from Berklee College
of Music. Upon graduating, she has found a home at Joy Music House where she has worked in score production on a variety of projects including the Emmy & Oscar-nominated RGB, Netflix’s Untold, and Emile Mosseri’s Oscar-nominated score to Minari. |
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 Philip Milman has had a passion for music for as long as he can remember. Whether he was performing on saxophone in the Baltimore Ravens marching band or playing bassoon in a youth orchestra, he has always loved using music to bring others joy and understand different perspectives. While in undergrad, Philip studied bassoon performance at the Eastman School of Music. He was also the music director of the YellowJackets a cappella group and led the group in various projects; he produced their most recent studio album, organized a music tour in Kenya, and arranged the group’s performance on the TODAY show. Philip completed his Masters Degree in Contemporary Media and Film Composition at Eastman in May of 2021, and he has since moved to LA to begin his music career. He is currently working on multiple projects including orchestrating a musical, producing albums for several pop artists, and playing for studio recording sessions on a variety of woodwind instruments. |
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 Lindsay Young is a composer, songwriter, and producer based in Los Angeles. After a diverse upbringing
performing in choirs, musicals, and various bands, Lindsay moved to California to receive her Bachelor’s Degree in Music. She had a brief stint in Nashville afterward, writing and recording her first EP and touring colleges across the east coast. Soon after, she moved to Los Angeles to
pursue a career in music. Since moving, she has performed with other artists, worked as a session musician, and continued to write, produce, and mix for her own artist project Lindsay Ruth. Most recently, Lindsay has released four new singles in 2021 and is currently working as a freelance composer. |
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