Mark Slater conducting the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios
Mark Andrew Slater (born 1 April 1969) is a British film composer, conductor, cellist and pianist. He is the composer for the film Flatland, 400 Years of the Telescope.,[1] and numerous planetariumfulldome films.[2] He lives in Tokyo, Japan and is a professor of film music at Andvision International Music School, Tokyo.[3] Slater is a sponsored artist of the Make Art Not War Foundation.[4]
In 2006 Slater scored the animated feature film Flatland: The Film[13][14][15] directed by Ladd Ehlinger Jr. In 2007 Tribal DDB commissioned Slater to provide a film score for the Philips Aurea Seduction by Light[16][17] campaign.[18] The project won prestigious industry awards in the Consumer Electronics category including specific awards for music[19] and People's Voice at the 12th Annual 2008 Webby Awards.
In 2008 Slater scored the music for 400 Years of the Telescope,[20] a PBS special for the 2009 International Year of Astronomy, with the London Symphony Orchestra, which garnered Slater a Telly Award. The related fulldome video project, Two Small Pieces of Glass, became the most played planetarium full dome film shown for 3 years in a row.[21] Planetarium Director Andrew Kerr said "it has the most spectacular beginning of any planetarium show", noting the "visceral feeling" created by the score with the visuals.[22] This marked the start of acclaimed soundtracks[23] for the fulldome planetarium world[24] such as Natural Selection (2010),[25] Dinosaurs at Dusk (2013),[26] Edge of Darkness (2015), Mars 1001 (2018).[27]
In 2020, Slater produced music for the Tokyo Olympics VR coverage by COSM Studios[28] and an 8-part VR series for Meta Platforms, Tokyo Origami.[29] The episode "Through the Eyes of an Otaku" won Best Short at the Brno Fulldome Film Festival.[30]
In 2021, Slater collaborated with Argentinian composer Gabriel Lococo on an anti-war concept album about the Falklands War / Guerra de Malvinas: a 10-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over the islands.[31] The album, Temas Unidos,[32][33] was recognized by the legislature of Buenos Aires as Culturally and Socially Significant in 2022.
In 2023, Slater was the mixing engineer and producer for a live concert album from the Whisky a Go Go nightclub with Uruguayan–Argentine singer Alika and Quinto Sol performing[34]
Awards
Cannes Cyberlions Grand Prix (Seduction by Light)[35]
