With a love for rich string arrangements, Jeffrey Gold imbues his scores with classical Romanticism along the modern edge. The ability to make subtle changes parallel the emotions, reserved in sentimentality, marks Gold's work for film.
Winner of the Jury Choice Gold Medal for his score of a full-length feature film in the 2004 Park City Film Music Festival and Semi-Finalist in the Film Scoring Competition of the 2004 Moondance International Film Festival, film composer Jeffrey Gold's works have also premiered at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Centres in Cardiff, Wales and in Piccadilly, London, on television in the U.K. and U.S., on radio, and at film festivals in the U.S. His music for Promontory has also premiered on PBS television in the U.S. Educated at Cambridge University, he is a lifetime member of the Cambridge Film and Television Society. He has been a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) since 1999. Mr. Gold was a recent participant in the 2004 Sundance Institute/Johnny Mercer Foundation weekend for songwriters and performers.
His philosophy on music in film is predicated on the marriage of visual music and emotional music, the former of which tends to be more shapeless or ethereal, and the latter, which tends to be rooted in melodies or leitmotifs. This tends to create a confluence of seemingly disparate elements into what he calls "visual emotions". Additionally, rather than emphasize one unitary emotion, he constructs his music by running multiple (competing or neighboring) emotional threads through a temporal section of a composition, which allows the viewers or listeners to choose for themselves the proportions of the simultaneous emotions (rather than foist it on them), especially if the emotional threads are 'emotional neighbors'; e.g. sadness and melancholy. But all this is an analysis that follows an otherwise instinctual creative process.
Writes Gerald Elias, Associate Concertmaster of the Utah Symphony and First Violin of the Abramyan String Quartet, "I have had the opportunity to listen to the ... 'Elegy: Adagio for Strings' by Jeffrey Gold. This short piece, in the tradition of Barber and Vaughan-Williams is effective and compelling. Mr. Gold's use of rich string sonorities and evocative voice-leading, creating well-timed and poignant dissonances, conveys a mood of simultaneous despair and hope."
Jeffrey Gold always welcomes interactions with other film composers and filmmakers, and filmmakers seeking a composer are always welcome to contact him to discuss potential film scoring projects.