Featured Composer: Daniel Clive McCallum

Born in 1989 in Melbourne Australia, Daniel Clive McCallum is a composer; for film, television, theatre and concert music. Having studied performance & composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music High School and later furthering his studies in composition at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London with the generous assistance of the ABRSM scholarship, Daniel has acquired a strong foundation of musical skills allowing him to work flexibly in various musical fields.

His natural musical voice and flexibility of style & timbre has allowed him to write for many different events & occasions, resulting in several prominent commissions both national and internationally from such organizations as; Ars Musica Australis, The Warringah City Council, Chronology Arts, The Royal Academy of Music, CHAOS, Choir & Organ Magazine (Cambridge) & Imagine a Spectacle Production to name just a few.

His music has been recorded and performed at numerous venues including; the South Bank Center (London), Abbey Road Studios, the Sydney Opera House, Eugenes Goossens Hall (Sydney), Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Dukes Hall (London), MLC (Sydney), Round House Studios (London), Webster University concert hall & the Historic Houses Trust (Sydney).

Daniel Clive McCallum joined forces with New York filmmaker, Natalya Sara Cohen, composing new music for her short film Ms Fantasia the Timekeeper, for live performance by PLEXUS alongside the film's Australian premiere screening.

This collaborative work was premiered in PLEXUS: We have lift off on 24 February 2014 at fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne.

Ms Fantasia the Timekeeper (2014)

Une Femme perdu son amour / A woman lost her love
porte son portrait bijou   / bearing his portrait jewel
Le temps casse pour toujour   / Time broken forever
une un connu apparu   / a single known appearance
L'horlorger reparer entrer   /   The clockmaker's repair enters
Le temps a recommencer   / time continues again
La rose a peux refleuree   / The rose petals can grow
elle arrête de pleure   / she can stop crying
Un person touille temps colleter   / A person stirring time by the collar
Gaspille du temps sans pense   / wastes time without thinking
Mais l'ange vais reste regarder   / But the angel will watch

Paying homage to Charlie Chaplin, Natalya Sara Cohen’s debut film, the silent short Mrs Fantasia the Timekeeper, is a whimsical yet poignant meditation on love and loss, the irreversible ravages of time, and the possibility of renewal.

A young woman, in her attempt to come to terms with her widowhood delves deeper into a world of her own. While others look askance at Mrs Fantasia, Chap the clockmaker takes notice of her when he senses she is in need of repair herself.

Natalya Sara Cohen is a South African born, French filmmaker based in Miami, Florida.

Natalya writes: “Each picture we see is compiled by a mass of passionate artists and engineers. As people, not just artists, we are the pixels of a far greater picture. As a director I can only communicate my vision of a story. My hope is to create both a meaningful and cinematic experience in every film I make. Film is universal, produced and distributed by and to all people in various languages. By taking any story and by sharing the truths of humanity in a light that speaks to all, only in the language of cinema, perhaps for a moment the world can laugh and cry together. In some small way it’s because of people like me.”