Featuring...
Robert Kral
Musical Composer for ANGEL

At night, on the streets of Los Angeles, an unseen horror stalks its human prey. Moving like a whisper in the darkness, this sound would be undetectable to the human ear. The victim, never aware that doom was imminent. In reality, only the television viewer has an inkling as to what is about to transpire. They wait as tension builds and the anticipating mood heighten. How do they know to tense up as the victim walks unsuspectingly through the night? How do they know to scream a warning upon the deaf ears of the character in danger? They know through the effect of sound and music!

Whether it is a wheedling violin or a crashing orchestra, music has become so important to the viewer of television and film that it has integrated itself to the actual story. It warns, sooths, suggests, enlightens and most significantly emphases the event. Angel has exemplified this premise with the imaginative scorings of composer Robert Kral, the driving musical force behind the show.

~ Intro by: Jude Huzicko

 

A Virtuoso at Age Five

In the beginning, most children of inspiration find themselves set before their life's goal without question. Mostly because they aren’t old enough to speak their mind. But when a natural love and talent for an art such as music shows itself in a child so young, nothing short of inspiration and awe can follow. Robert’s destiny was none so different even for a boy growing up in Australia. "I began learning the piano at age 5," he starts out telling us, "but it wasn't until the middle of high school that I began writing original music.

Robert Kral: He speaks the
language of Angel in music.
That's when I first really believed I had a talent for it. I always really loved film music, but didn't always enjoy what I learned when I studied the piano." Pushing oneself in a direction toward their own creativity can open the flood gates. "Once I wrote my first song and a few other composition ideas I realized if I worked hard enough I could create the kind of music I wanted to hear, rather than wading through the piano repertoire which for the most part I found quite boring. I never thought I would make a career out of music until I started composing. Then I instantly knew I wanted to compose for Film and Television."

Being lucky enough to know what you want at a young age is half the battle, and having supportive people, parents and teachers is a strong backing as well. Some of the best in the business today were the people that inspired and encouraged Robert when he was young. "Major inspiration came from mainstream film composers. John Williams (Jaws, Close Encounters and Star Wars fame) blew me away. I think there a lots of kids that found Star Wars inspiring on many levels, and you will find many composers, including myself, that look back to the first time they heard Star Wars as one of the first major sources of inspiration." Rob continues, "A lot of my inspiration also came from dramatic circumstances around me. I wasn't trying to copy any composer, but rather draw from experiences and express it in my music. It might sound funny, but the first piece I had performed at a concert in High School was inspired by a huge flock of birds found dying outside the school one day.
"At fifteen, I set
out to write and
orchestrate my
first orchestral
piece..."
My friends and I walked through this field of birds and it was a pretty emotional experience. Off to the piano I went! (After calling the RSPCA that is!)." Rob is not without humor as you can see.

A teenager in love with composing music may be an easy dream when one lives in New York and has access to wonderful schools of the arts, but things were different where Robert grew up. "There were no composition teachers at my High School, but I was encouraged by the school's music teachers to pursue the talent. I wrote for the school concert band, which played the piece at many concerts. The success of that confirmed for me that I should pursue this as far as it would go. At fifteen, I set out to write and orchestrate my first orchestral piece, a kind of 'teach myself' exercise. It took me two hours to get through the first 5 seconds of music! (Now I write about a half hour per week.)" And so a musical talent was born. Taking this to higher education would be the real test for Robert and most students who didn’t have the same drive would abandon their skills at this time."More difficult training came at University (of Adelaide) exploring experimental /contemporary styles," he remembers, "and then later at USC's (University of Southern California) Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program in Los Angeles."

A big part of inspiration is also support and where you find it. "After [my music] was performed, my parents were totally supportive and so were my teachers. However at University not all professors were supportive of my wish to develop film music styles. One named Graham Dudley encouraged me totally and even incorporated film music assignments into his program. Otherwise it was a battle to develop this as the curriculum was more ‘academic’.

Little did Rob know what
awaited him in Hollywood!
Friends were very encouraging, but in the small city of Adelaide, South Australia it was a fairly lonely endeavor." At the University of Adelaide, Rob received his Bachelor of Music Degree. He explains a bit of the difference in the educational structures of down-under and the US. "In Australia, by the time you hit University or college you need to have already specialized in one area. There are no ‘majors’ or ‘General Ed’ classes, that has already been dealt with in High School. So it was all music subjects by that point, and I found the Orchestration classes of most value. I could have done with those when I spent that first two hours on that orchestral piece I mentioned earlier! In Composition classes we studied composers of the 20th Century, which I now, for the most part, classify as experimental. These composers took very interesting intellectual approaches and tried to expand music out of the ‘normal’ western classical rules. These techniques actually come in very handy for horror scenes, as they leave the listener, most often, on edge." Once in the United States Rob continued his education with a more centered direction that would lead him into his current career. "At USC, later, in Los Angeles I took the Film Scoring program which was a breath of fresh air as all I studied was Film and TV music, conducting for film, orchestration for the film industry (i.e. how to orchestrate FAST!) etc. It was a fabulous year and very exciting to finally be in the States amongst real film and TV composers and learning all this."