SANTA MONICA - Sovereign (www.sovereignla.com) has opened in Santa Monica, with the goal of providing conceptually-inspiring soundtracks for moving pictures. The collective is the vision of composer PJ Hanke, and will provide original music, sound design and music licensing services for commercials, film and television projects.
In addition to the composing talents of Hanke, the team also includes sound designer Tim Gedemer and music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas, with Katie Jones serving as executive producer and Arrianne Braverman residing as sales representative.
"At Sovereign, we want to return music to a valued art form by approaching each project, whether it's a commercial, television program or feature film, in a unique way," explains Hanke. "We have created a boutique collective and studio where we can put music and sound design to picture in an inspiring environment. We will collaborate with clients closely to discover their concepts and then create the appropriate music, whether it is original or licensed, and sound design - merging sound with moving image."
Hanke has toured with the legendary Ray Charles and has collaborated with artists such as Smashing Pumpkins and R. Kelly. He's also toured with Perry Como and Frank Sinatra. In 1996, feature film music composer Hans Zimmer selected an elite group of composers from around the world to form Media Ventures, and Hanke was chosen as one of only two Americans. In 2000, he opened Spank! L.A, where he built the Chicago-based company's new West Coast studio. He has also composed for film and television through his own music company, Spitfire.
Life-long musician Tim Gedemer has sound design credits in feature films, television shows, commercials, games and specialty venue projects. He's provided sound design through EFX Systems, The Audio Group, Spank! and Sourcesound before joining Sovereign.
Music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas will be focused on providing music licensing for commercial projects, continuing to work on film and television projects through her company in Hollywood, The Chop Shop.
Sovereign has already completed projects for Nike, Acura, California Cheese and the Mill Valley Film Festival, and was recently awarded a project for Capital One via McCann/San Francisco.