Ilan Eshkeri is an award-winning composer, artist, songwriter, producer and creator. We spoke with Ilan in 2015 (about 47 Ronin, Black Sea and The Snowman & The Snowdog) and were happy to catch up with him to discuss his process writing music for BBC’s A Perfect Planet. This new nature series is his fourth collaboration with legendary naturalist Sir David Attenborough. The bulk of this interview focuses on his efforts to write that music and the underlying idea of hope in many of the themes (we’ve included selections from his score below).
Recently, Ilan and Ralph Fiennes completed their third film together – a biopic about Rudolf Nureyev, The White Crow. Amongst his extensive catalogue of film & television are multiple Oscar & BAFTA winning films such as Still Alice, Stardust, and Shaun The Sheep and his video game work includes music for The Sims and Ghost of Tsushima.
Outside of narrative work, Ilan worked with astronaut Tim Peake and the European Space Agency on a film documenting his mission to the International Space Station. Ilan continues his collaboration with Tim Peake and ESA with his spell-binding show ‘Space Station Earth’ last performed in Stockholm to an audience of 10,000. That show and more performances of it are scheduled throughout 2021 so look out for that.
In our on-going podcast series, this was our longest show to date and quite possibly the most honest. But it was also just bloody fun. So enjoy our late night chat with Ilan (it was nearly 11pm UK time when we finished) as we cover everything from piano and violin to Nirvana and Guns N’ Roses, then on to Shaun the Sheep and Layer Cake as well as arctic foxes, giant river turtles and sooty shearwaters!
A Perfect Planet shines a light on everything that makes our planet just that. Its size, its distance from the Sun, its spin and tilt, its moon are all perfectly suited to our existence, and our planet’s natural forces perfectly nurture life. This new docuseries is narrated by David Attenborough.
For more information, and to listen to samples of his work, head to Ilan’s official website http://ilaneshkeri.com/and follow him on Twitter at @ilaneshkeri.
