Hitmakers Exposed

The fascinating world of string orchestration and composition is unveiled by Grammy award winning Steve Sidwell in this open chat about his work, the artists he has worked with and the highs in his life we would all love to experience.
Steve has featured on numerous albums, television shows, advertising campaigns and films with his distinctive and innovative orchestrations and compositions.

Steve’s has produced some outstanding and award winning specialist commissions. Including ‘Elements and Motion’ written for the 79th Academy Awards and the sensational ‘Honda Choir’. Steve’s 2015 GRAMMY Award was for the Best Musical Theatre Album for the original cast album Beautiful: The Musical; Steve was also nominated for a Tony Award for Best Orchestration for Beautiful The Carole King Musical.

With album credits from Robbie Williams to Dame Shirley Bassey, Steve has performed professionally with many international artists. Contributions to movie tracks include Moulin Rouge, Romeo & Juliet, Bridget Jones’ Diary to name but a few.

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Sie is a Grammy, Mercury Prize and MOBO nominated Producer, Songwriter, Mixer, and Engineer with 28 years of professional experience in the music industry and 14 years as a Sony ATV Publishing in house songwriter. The last few decades have seen Sie constantly produce, write and mix music with artists and labels at every level. Sie sees his longevity in the industry down to his insatiable thirst for all things forward facing. Be that helping developing technology for Ableton to development of the production process. Sie has managed to stay current all these years bringing his love for the underground with him to the over ground.

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In this inspiring interview, Paddy reveals the ups and downs of being a creative, how to maintain the positivity and self belief, and shares the stories behind the hits.
Paddy Byrne is a multi million selling British songwriter, musician and producer known for working in a variety of genres with multi platinum and developing artists alike such as Snakehips, Paloma Faith, Ella Eyre, Tom Grennan, Olly Murs, Will Young, Gabrielle, Sinead Harnett, Daley, Devlin, Felon, Watermat, I Blame Coco and Mononoke.

His focus is always on the song, the artist’s vision and their vocal. He is as accomplished when writing and producing an entire song as he is writing lyrics and top line for other productions.

Paddy started his professional career writing and singing in his band ‘Byrne’ gaining widespread acclaim for their self produced album ‘Slowly & Gloriously’, receiving unanimously positive reviews including 9/10 in NME, 4/5 UNCUT and 5/5 Observer Music Monthly.

Following the birth of his first son he stopped touring and set up his studio and began co-writing and producing. His journey from the indi scene as an artist to co-creating in more commercial genres was immediately successful working with Will Young on four songs for his album ‘Let It Go’. His experience as a lead singer and writer gives him a deep affinity with artists and a love of vocal expression and lyric.

He has written and produced many multi platinum selling songs and is currently working with a wide variety of established and up and coming artists, writers and producers.

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The stories behind the life of global hit songwriter Pam Sheyne.
Now based in Los Angeles, New Zealand born Pam Sheyne’s career has resulted in a number of globally recognised hit records, major film end titles, sales of 50+ million records, 100+ platinum, gold and silver sales certifications, 7 BMI Pop airplay citations and a prestigious Ivor Novello award.

Whilst best known for the global breakthrough single “Genie In A Bottle” for Christina Aguilera (No.1 USA Hot 100/No.1 UK), she was also responsible for Dream’s debut hit “He Loves U Not” (USA No.2 Hot 100/No.1 Soundscan) as well as Jessica Simpson’s “Irresistible” (No.15 USA Hot 100).

Her songs have been covered by a number of international artists including Seal, Corrine Bailey Rae, The Backstreet Boys, O Town, Nick Lachey, Laura Pausini, Hayley Westenra, Lindsay Lohan, Eternal, Play, No Angels, Cece Winans, Point of Grace and The Saturdays.

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I loved this conversation with two super cool professionals from the world of music in TV and Movies.
Mike Ladman is Senior Music Supervisor at Droga5. Since joining Droga5 in 2016, Mike has developed the Music Department and manages music and audio capabilities across the agency and client roster. During this time, Mike has helped lead the agency to win over 25 music and advertising industry awards, notably four Cannes Lions, two D&AD Pencils, four Clios and six AMP awards, among others, across Droga5 clients such as Google, The New York Times, Hennessy and others. In 2018, Mike was named one of Billboard’s s Top Branding Power Players. He has been an international music delegate around the world at music festivals and conferences in Denmark, Amsterdam, Israel, Brazil and more. Prior to joining Droga5, he was a Music Producer at McCann for nearly seven years, where he provided music for clients, such as Microsoft, the United States Army, Verizon, MasterCard and more, across the agency’s roster. Mike received his first film credit managing the music supervision for an indie film, Tracktown, which premiered at the LA Film Festival in 2016. In his free time, you can find Mike DJing around New York City as DJ PuppyHiccups.
Nikolas Keenan (p.k.a. "shy niko") is a songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, engineer and music supervisor. Born and raised in Chicago, IL his career has spanned over 10+ years. It began under a poorly devised French artist moniker while doing remixes for major labels and independent releases with Kitsuné (Boys Noize, La Roux, Bloc Party). Formerly a full time Head of Music at global advertising agency VMLY&R, Nik has seen many sides to the creative industry from producing artists, to crafting original music for commercials, to leading music supervision for major brands. His original music can be heard across global brands like Apple, Meta, Google, Nike, J.P. Morgan Chase, Samsung, Puma, Sonos, Michael Kors, Coca-Cola, Coors, Sephora, Coach, Toyota, and many more. His music has also been featured on popular shows such as Hulu's The Kardashian's, ABC's Grown-ish, MTV's Siesta Key, HBO's ...And Just Like That and films on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and more. His music has also been featured by Chicago's very own, Lyrical Lemonade, and other major publications such as Pitchfork and Forbes. In the studio, Nik has collaborated with artists such as Skizzy Mars, Grouplove, Loren Gray, Ayelle, Piwa, and many more. He currently lives in Chicago and drinks way too much iced coffee.

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