The IFMCA is delighted to announce the induction of four new members into the group:
John Bender is a freelance film music journalist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His earliest memories of pleasures from life on Earth involve television and film, and the music for both. As a student he pursued education in the visual Fine Arts and earned his MFA from Yale University. Following graduation he worked in a wide variety of capacities, including fine artist (painter), museum curator, art critic, gallery director, arts guild presidency, university instructor and lecturer, graphic artist, freelance editor, and film lecturer. In the early 1990s, and without any expectations, John began writing about film music (he has been a life-long collector and connoisseur). He feels very fortunate that this pursuit blossomed into a fulfilling and consistent avenue of personal expression, and he freely confesses to be enjoying every minute of it. His work, which focuses on the Silver Age, has appeared in Soundtrack!, Variety, European Trash Cinema, Video Watchdog, and Film Score Monthly. He was the first journalist to publish English interviews with Edda Dell’Orso and Peter Thomas. The connection to film music has, over the years, provided glorious opportunities, including new friendships, travel (Europe), the experience of meeting many great artists, and the honor of providing notes for a number of top-ranked and beloved film scores. His philosophical bearing as an enthusiastic film music writer
is to enlighten and educate, both with the singular intent of promoting informed appreciation of the medium.
Panos Gkenas is the chief film music reviewer for www.avopolis.gr, the biggest music site in Greece. When he was 3, John Williams and a light-fingered alien showed him the way. Panos and his interest for movies grew up together, and he began writing about film music in 2001. He worked as a film critic for free-press magazines and as a director for short films, supervised video installations and theatre productions as a musical consultant, and is currently working with “The Mitsos Company”, an art group consisting of film directors, actors and dancers, in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Dimitri Riccio has written about film music since 1987, first for Soundtrack! magazine, now for several Italian classical music monthlies as film music editor, and for www.colonnesonore.net. Dimitri also works as an actor, does voice dubbing in films, and is industrial engineer in computer science.
Brian Satterwhite is a professional composer based in Austin, Texas. He holds a degree with dual majors in Film Scoring and Composition from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Over the years, Brian has written scores for over eighty-five short and feature films, and his accolades include seven Gold Medals for Excellence and a Silver Medal from the Park City Film Music Festival, a Bronze Telly Award, and in 2001 Brian was a Finalist in the Young Film Composers Competition sponsored by Turner Classic Movies. Brian is also the producer and host of the Austin film music radio program “Film Score Focus” on 89.5 KMFA and writes extensively for several web sites including his own professional blog.
Welcome gentlemen!