Beneath Hill 60, Bran Nue Dae, The Rage In Placid Lake, Two Hands, Lillian’s Story, Death Defying Acts, Blessed, La Spagnola, The Sound Of One Hand Clapping, Bootmen.

If you’ve seen any of these films then you will have heard the music of Melbourne based composer Cezary Skubiszewski. Chances are if you’ve seen these or any of the other films Cezary has composed the music for you will remember there was something special in what you were hearing.

Cezary is arguably one of Australia’s most inventive score composers. He takes chances in the choice of films he works on and the direction in which he goes with the compositions, the arrangements and the orchestration created for each work.

This is what drives him and this is what draws many filmmakers to want him to work on their films. He is brave, he is inventive. The music often lifts the images and yet here is an opportunity to take in the music on their own merits with FilmWorks – a retrospective selection of the film works created by Cezary Skubiszewski.

Cezary was born and raised in Poland and studied classical piano from the age of six. He veered toward experimental jazz bands and straight rock bands in his teens. In 1974 he migrated to Australia and later received his ‘big break’ in 1995 when asked by produced Marian Macgowan to do the score for ‘Lillian’s Story’ directed by Jerzy Domaradzki. Since then Cezary has done original scores for seventeen feature films as well as a number of TV series.

Leading up to and in between all the film and TV scores Cezary has consistently received work opportunities in advertising including award winning campaign’s ‘Carlton Draught BIG Ad’ and the ‘VB Symphony’. Those two ads became a sensation all over the world

TV series have included Halifax, After The Deluge the award winning theme for Carla Cametti PD (co composed with son and fellow composer Jan Skubiszewski).

“There is beauty in all of Cezary’s works” says film critic, editor and publisher of Urbancinefile Andrew L Urban. “Irrespective of the emotional objective and irrespective of the musical colours he uses."

If that isn’t enough of an invitation to take a close listen to Cezary's work consider the range of instrumentation Cezary uses in his palette of music contributors. Full Orchestra’s and or specific ensembles that often include the likes of Melbourne rock identities Shane O’Mara, Steve Hadley & Harry Angus. Jazz trumpeter Scott Tinkler (solo lead in front of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra on “Cityscape” from the feature length documentary ‘Night’.) , oboist Stephen Robinson, violinists Xani Kolac, Rudolph Osadnik, Nigel McLean, John Rodgers, Sarah and Monica Curro, viola player Isabelle Morse, Miriam Morris on viola de gamba and Brian O’Brien (from Riverdance) on Uilleann pipes and Irish whistle.

Cezary is one of Australia’s most celebrated screen composer’s with multiple APRA, ARIA, Screen Composers and AFI Awards and Nominations to his credit yet he still likes to record as much as he can in his Melbourne home studio.

“Thanks to the advantages of technology I can record a lot of things here” he says.
“What I keep in mind is that I can improve some elements of a track in another studio, but if takes are good I will definitely keep them. However – big recording studios bring a very special energy which I enjoy a lot”

“What is beautiful in music is human imperfection” – Cezary was quoted not long after doing the score for The Rage In Placid Lake. His search for the spark of ingenuity, of a beauty in the music he creates and what he draws out of the players he assembles for each project is still paramount.