“Despite my childhood dreams of becoming a film score composer, I got into composing for film by chance. During my first semester as a master’s student at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, I registered on a whim for a film scoring course with Professor Larry Groupé. I enjoyed the class enough to take another course with Professor Groupé the following semester. As my final project for this class, I scored a short excerpt of the 1925 documentary Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life. Through the Jon Vickers Film Scoring Award, the Indiana University Cinema commissions a student composer each year to score a pre-existing silent film for a live premiere; that year, Grass had been selected for the project. Although the application excerpt was brief, I developed a connection with the film as I wrote my score; somehow, I felt that the film communicated to me that I would be chosen for the commission before I even submitted my application.

Grass, the second ever ethnographic documentary, chronicles a tribe of fifty thousand Bakhtiari as they embark on their seasonal odyssey in search of grass to sustain their livestock. Above all, Grass is a film about resilience. When faced with the Karun River’s miles of icy rapids, the Bakhtiari can only swim for their lives. When Zardeh Kuh looms thousands of feet above them, the barefoot tribe must forge a path up the icy mountain. Regardless of the obstacles, the Bakthiari soldier on; for the tribe, grass is life, so they must persist or die. The film is notable not only for its powerfully emotional framing of the journey, but also for its extraordinary footage of the landscapes and the people who inhabit them. Because of these landscapes, I augmented the sinfonietta with an electronics track in specific instances in order to reflect the expansiveness of the panoramic shots. At Professor Groupé’s suggestion, I also added a cimbalom to the ensemble; along the way, the instrument came to represent the tribe, and its wild flurries of activity emblematize the Bakhtiari’s battle against the elements throughout the score.

In writing this piece, I started a journey of my own: I started a second master’s degree in scoring for visual media with Grass as my thesis. Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life (2020–21) is my first full-length film score, but I hope it will not be my last. To all those who will watch, thank you for taking this journey with me.”