Hollywood Film Composer Christopher Young returns for the third consecutive year to Madrid, Spain, to teach his brilliant film scoring program. Such is his popularity and admiration, Chris had a full class of new and returning composers, and continues to inspire and support everyone

Spearheading our summer program Christopher Young brings with him a sense of  professionalism and humanity. His riveting classes are at heart of the program for our students. A brilliantly taught program that was the talk of the town.

Nigel Ashley Lees, is the founder of GEMS. His aim is to create exciting and purposeful experiences for musicians who are aiming to work in Global Entertainment. Each year he designs new programs where composers from all over the world can meet and have a great time together.

Each year, hard core die hard Spanish fans visit us during the program to meet Christopher Young. To share & swap stories, take selfies, and have LPs, CDs, DVDs, film posters and books signed, with the ever welcoming Christopher Young.

Our 2nd edition of our annual GEMS Magazine for all our students and staff is full of information about the program, student and faculty profiles, and interviews with our tutors. We also include a day by day timetables and calendar for  events and activities we run during the summer program.

For the final assignment, participants composed a main title to one of Christopher Youngs films. They also had the option to bring their own composition and record it with the Mad 4 Strings 50 piece orchestra, recorded by GOYA winning producer José Vinader. Scores were reviewed with Pete Anthony in his Orchestration class.

Listen to the final main titles here

Meeting up with everyone the night before the start of the summer program we booked the roof terrace at My Way Sky Bar on Gran Via  for our students to watch the sunset and put names to faces over some sangria. Amazing views for an amazing start to our 2019 summer program

Each year GEMS students are invited to Los Angeles to visit and stay with Christopher Young. An absolutely life changing opportunity. This year one of our many students who went to LA, Fernando Ortega Rojo joins us for a Q&A and to tell all about his adventures in Hollywood with Christopher Young

This year working with our long term awards partner Native Instruments in Los Angeles,  we created three amazing awards for three of our composers to win Komplete 12. The categories were Best MockUp, Best Composition, Best Orchestration with Maria Vertiz taking away the Best Orchestration award. Maria now works at the JNH studio

This year we introduced our GEMS t-shirt range for all our tutors, faculty and students who joined us on the GEMS summer program. They came in women and mens sizes, super quality - super cool and super exclusive "Ts"

BAFTA winning Hollywood Game Composer Garry Schyman returns for his second GEMS Program in Madrid, Spain, to teach his fantastic game scoring program. Garry lit up the room with his program covering  aleatoric music, composing for game, and working as an independent composer

Pete Anthony joined GEMS for his first program that was an absolute sell out. This was a game changer for the program and for our students. Pete delivered an exceptional program that packed the class room!

Dr. Juanjo Molina, the lead instructor for the summer program, returns with once again conducting the orchestra, for all our participants compositions, and as ever, he was flawless, creative and cool.

This year we went wild! Each participant took home their own signed score from the feature, Spiderman 3. We also included the hand written score from all the chapter of HellRaiser with Christophers original hand written notes on the score. Then included two solo piano scores from the video game, BioShock & BioShock 2  by Garry Schyman. Both Garry Schyman and Christopher Young wrote a personal message to each of the students on their scores. WOW!

Garry Schyman joined us for our 5 minutes with series... where we ask our GEMS students to prepare a rapid fire question 

for Garry about game scoring, his career, personal favourite composers and a whole lot more.

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Watch this and other interviews here

Participant compositions were record this year by a 50 piece Mad4Strings Orchestra, Spains best professional film scoring orchestra, who have recorded work with award winning composers  Feredico Jusid (Loving Pablo), Victor Reyes (Newcomer), Zacarías de la Riva (Pet), Sergio Moure (Lobos Sucios), Cesar Benito (La sonata del Silencio) and performed sold out  John Williams Homage concerts conducted by Film Composer Lucas Vidal, (Fast & Furious 6).

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Watch the recordings here

For the second year running, we headed back to our favourite Flamenco show in Madrid. WOW they did not disappoint! It was electrifying! Joining the entire class were partners, friends and family who came to see the show with their respective students on the GEMS program. As such we filled the venue - a real exclusive and emotional experience for everyone.

Everyday included in the summer program, GEMS invited 3 students for lunch with Christopher Young, and every student came! It give the Maestro the opportunity to get to know them all out of class, over lunch. It was our first time introducing lunch with the Maestro and it was a massive success. Both Pete Anthony and Garry Schyman also had  selected lunches with students whilst they were with us.

The Fantastic NATIVE INSTRUMENTS LOS ANGELES were with us once again and have been supporting us from day on. WOW! WONDERFUL!

Check out some of the final videos edited with the produced music tracks. Awesome!

Legendary Hollywood Film Orchestrator Pete Anthony joins us for his first program in Madrid, Spain, to teach his unbelievable orchestration program, that literally changed the way composers thought about orchestration in relation to scoring. Several award winning composers attended

Garry Schyman delivered a 2 day masterclass in Game Scoring. This was our first time we incorporate Game Scoring in the summer program and without a doubt it is here to stay.

Dr. Francesco Menini, provides support for our composers. He brings with him all the compositional and orchestration skills needed to help prepare our composers for the orchestral recording.

Since we began the GEMS program, each year we support the inclusion of more women composers through our contemporary women composers scholarships program. This year we were thrilled to welcome the largest number of brilliant contemporary women composers, some who were award winning composers themselves, from all over the world. By financially supporting gender equality and diversity, we are aiming to help bridge this gap in the music industry.

Ukraine composer Yuliya Protasova and some of her fellow participants, sit down and talk about their experiences on the GEMS  Film Scoring Program.

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Watch the  testimonial interviews here

Participant compositions were produced by legendary Spanish film music producer and GOYA winner, Jose Vinader, who has worked on nearly 300 films, with composers such as Alberto Iglesias, for movies such as Captain Alatriste (Viggo Mortensen) & Automata (Antonio Banderas).

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Watch the recordings here

Facilitating this unique summer program, was the beautiful capital city of Madrid, Spain, with its cosmopolitan vibe, parks, cafes, restaurants, historical and modern architecture and night life. This year’s program was located once more in the heart of Madrid, off the Gran Via.

Each year GEMS students are invited to one on mentor session with Christopher Young -  check out the composers interviews to hear what happened in their personal one on one with Christopher Young.

The Fantastic Positive Grid were with us and supporting us from day one  WONDERFUL