Paul Hepker
Encyclopedia
Paul Hepker is the largest city and capital of Zimbabwe. It has an estimated population of 1,600,000, with 2,800,000 in its metropolitan area . Administratively, Harare is an independent city equivalent to a province. It is Zimbabwe's largest city and its...
, Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
; December 17, 1967) - South African composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, musical director, pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
, best known for composing the score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
(with Mark Kilian
Mark Kilian
Born and raised in South Africa, Mark came to the USA to pursue a career in film scoring in 1994. His academic life in his native country and very active performing career prepared him for his enrollment into USC’s Film Scoring program...
) for the film Tsotsi
Tsotsi
Tsotsi is a 2005 film written and directed by Gavin Hood. The film is an adaptation of the novel Tsotsi, by Athol Fugard. The soundtrack features Kwaito music performed by popular South African artist Zola as well as a score by Mark Kilian and Paul Hepker featuring the voice of South African...
, which won the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards
78th Academy Awards
The 78th Academy Awards honored the best films of 2005 and were held on March 5, 2006, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. They were hosted by The Daily Show host Jon Stewart, with Tom Kane making his first appearance as the show's announcer...
in 2005. Hepker and Kilian also wrote the score for Rendition
Rendition
Rendition may refer to:*Rendition , a legal term meaning "handing over"*Extraordinary rendition by the United States, the abduction and illegal transfer of a person from one nation to another*"Rendition" , an episode of Torchwood...
, the Gavin Hood
Gavin Hood
Gavin Hood is a South African filmmaker, screenwriter, producer and actor, best known for writing and directing the Academy Award-winning Foreign Language Film Tsotsi...
film starring Jake Gyllenhaal
Jake Gyllenhaal
Jacob Benjamin "Jake" Gyllenhaal is an American actor. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting at age ten...
, Reese Witherspoon
Reese Witherspoon
Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon , better known as Reese Witherspoon, is an American actress and film producer. Witherspoon landed her first feature role as the female lead in the film The Man in the Moon in 1991; later that year she made her television acting debut, in the cable movie Wildflower...
and Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
amongst others. Hepker and Kilian also co-composed the score for "The Bird Can't Fly" by Dutch director Threes Anna. Hepker wrote the music for the AIDs documentary "Into the Light" which featured the voice of Kenyan artist Ayub Ogada
Ayub Ogada
Ayub Ogada is a musician from Kenya. Ogada was born in Mombasa and is one of the Luo people of Western Kenya.He received his first exposure to Western culture early on. When he was six, his parents , toured the college circuit in the U.S...
.
In the 1990s Hepker toured extensively as pianist/keyboardist with Shirley Bassey
Shirley Bassey
Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...
, Johnny Clegg and many talented South African artists including Vusi Mahlasela
Vusi Mahlasela
Vusi Sidney Mahlasela Ka Zwane is a Sotho South African singer-songwriter.His music is generally described as "African folk". His work was an inspiration to many in the anti-apartheid movement. His themes include the struggle for freedom, and forgiveness and reconciliation with enemies...
, Vicky Sampson, Marcalex and Yvonne Chaka-Chaka.
A classically trained pianist (taught by Adolph Hallis) and multi-instrumentalist, Hepker lived and worked in South Africa as a musical director and composer - doing jingles, musicals and TV shows when not off touring the world. He was a successful Musical Director of stage productions of Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat for PACT at the State Theatre in Pretoria and The Theatre on the Track in Kyalami, where he also co-devised and musically directed Heaven Can't Wait and California Dreamin . In the mid 90's he had a pop duo called 'zelig' (with dyna-mite vocalist Gabriel).
Paul moved to Hollywood in 1997, where he now writes for film, TV and stage. Hepker has composed the music for numerous Discovery Channel series - including the wildly popular Alaskan crab-fishing shows: "Deadliest Catch" and "Deadliest Season". Other series include "Impact", "Crash Files", "Frontline Firefighters", "Iditarod", "Raw Nature" and "Shark U" . [see Paul's own Myspace page, and various other references including Rendition DVD case etc.]