praise forFacing Ali
“The standout original music of Schaun Tozer underscores an already compelling film.”
Seattle International Film Festival, 2009
Schaun Tozer is a multi award winning Composer and Producer whose music scores for film and television include the Academy Award shortlisted film Facing Ali, the Emmy Award winning film Mighty Jerome, and Canadian classics Da Vinci’s Inquest, Hard Core Logo, and Intelligence. He has won “Best Music” Leo Awards for Intelligence, Rabbit, The Romeo Section, No Clue, Blood Relative, I Am Bruce Lee, Mighty Jerome, Fathers & Sons, Terminal City, and My Father’s Angel, and he has been nominated in all Leo Award music categories twelve times. From Toronto, Schaun has also received a Canadian Screen Award “Best Original Music” nomination for The Romeo Section, and Gemini Award “Best Music” nominations for Intelligence and The Life. He won the Dolby Sound Award at the Cannes Film Festival premiere of Off Key, and he was the first Screen Composers Guild of Canada recipient of the “Christopher Dedrick Award for Live Musicians in Media Soundtracks”.
Several of Schaun’s film projects are also available as soundtrack albums and reflect his broad and progressive interests in a wide variety of musical styles and genres. They include Intelligence, Mighty Jerome, the remix project Sidetracks, Blood Relative, Rabbit, Sports on Fire, The Good Son, and No Clue which features the Vancouver Film Orchestra.
Schaun’s early professional career began in London, England, and included work with orchestras, bands, ensembles, touring, teaching, and recording studios Abbey Road, Air Studios, and 2012 “Studio of the Year” Eastcote Productions with the late, great phenom engineer Philip Bagenal. Schaun joined the Lost Jockey ensemble, originally performing music by Steve Reich and Philip Glass, before transitioning into their own compositions which culminated in the Professor Slack recordings at Abbey Road studios. Between 1982 and 1986, Schaun was appointed ‘Composer-in-Residence’ for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and stimulated a host of projects which included the construction of a modern, purpose built recording studio, “The Steam Rooms,” specifically for unemployed youth in a particularly economically challenged borough in the UK.
Schaun’s early interest in film took off with two music scores for the late boundary-pushing experimental film director Stephen Dwoskin. As a keyboard player, Schaun’s performances included the BBC’s Almeida Steve Reich Festival, as well as label ZTT’s showcase week at London’s Ambassador Theatre, Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, the Wigmore Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, London’s Africa Centre, and in a 2 piano duo with Mark Lockett. Schaun’s commissioned work included compositions for the Dreamtiger Ensemble, the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra, and for media and sound artist Martin Riches at the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin; and more recently Jonathan Harvey-In Memoriam for Britten Pears Arts.
Schaun co-founded the group Man Jumping, whose debut album Jump Cut garnered rave reviews and was a top ten album of the year selection by the Guardian, the Times, and Time Out. Man Jumping also branched out into the contemporary dance world with several commissions and European tours with the London Contemporary Dance Theatre Company and Second Stride Dance Company. Enduring interest in Man Jumping saw the remastering and rerelease of Jump Cut in 2017, the remastering and rerelease of 12” mixes in 2018, World Service in 2020, and the release of 3 Jump Cut remix albums in 2019 & 2020 by artists Bullion, Khidja, Reckonwrong, Gengahr, William Doyle, Low Island, and Gilligan Moss on vinyl and streaming outlets.
Schaun is an alumnus of the Guildhall School of Music, the University of Sussex with a B.A. (Hons) and M.A. in Music, and the University of California (San Diego) where he entered the Ph.d Music Composition program on a Fulbright-Hays Scholarship.
