Maggie Rodford is Managing Director of the Air-Edel Group, incorporating one of the world’s leading music publishing and production companies, representing composers worldwide. The company has offices in London and Los Angeles.

Maggie studied music, playing piano and cello and singing in choirs including the BBC Chorus. Maggie trained as a music engineer and prior to joining Air-Edel worked at both the BBC and EMI.

Maggie works closely with composers, negotiating contracts, producing, music supervising and co-ordinating music recordings. She has worked as music producer, co-ordinator and supervisor on many high profile films scores including ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, ‘Paddington 2’, ‘Darkest Hour’, ‘The Emoji Movie’, ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’, ‘A United Kingdom’, ‘Everest’, ‘Cinderella’, ‘The Boxtrolls’, ‘Belle’, ‘Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit’, ‘Third Person’, ‘Anna Karenina’, ‘Brave’, ‘Cabin in the Woods’, ‘Thor’, ‘Jane Eyre’, ‘My Week with Marilyn’, ‘W.E.’, ‘The King’s Speech’, ‘The First Grader’, ‘Atonement’, ‘Gosford Park’, ‘Bridget Jones’ Diary’, ‘Beyond the Sea’, ‘Pride & Prejudice’, ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’, ‘Miss Potter’, ‘Igor’, ‘The Soloist’ and ‘Agora’.

Maggie served as a PRS Director for many years and was an active member of the PRS Executive Board. Maggie was a member of the BAFTA Film committee for four years and is currently the Chairman of the BAFTA Archive, Heritage & Exhibitions Committee. In 2004, Maggie was presented with The Malaika Award in recognition of her work with the African Children’s Choir. In 2012, Maggie was awarded an APRS Fellowship.

During the festival, Maggie will appear in the following talks:
November 30
17:00-18:30 Current Trends in the scoring industry. Music supervisor and composer agent Maggie Rodford shares her experiences of how film music has developed over the past twenty years and discusses current trends in the scoring industry.

December 1
10:30-12:00 Mentoring session by Maggie Rodford. The entire session is participant-led, it’s based on the participant's particular profiles, prepared topics and proactive questions.

14:00-14:45 How to get a film scoring commission. Music supervisor and composer agent Maggie Rodford breaks down the process of the commissioning process in film music.

Mentoring session with Maggie Rodford
Friday, December 1
10:30-12:00.
SIGN UP FOR THE MENTORSHIP SESSION

Topics:
The core thematic area is: The main questions will be worked out with input from the participants chosen, but will most likely include some of the following:

• The working process of composing for a feature film: from briefs to actual production of the material, editing to fit the needs of the material, workflow with the music supervisor and film production representatives etc.
• The skillset of today's film composer: from scoring to handling electronic sound synthesis, sampling, specialist software; creating demos etc.
• Career development of a film composer: how and where to start, in what stage should an agent or a manager get involved. Realistic balance between film work and other options (production music etc).

Participants:
5 participants will be chosen through an application process. The target profile is (future) managers and/or agents interested to work with film music and media composers. In a small market such as Estonia such representation is locally mostly unnecessary and therefore underdeveloped. However, with a view to growing Estonian film music and media composers' international profiles, we need professional representation and competences.

The general goal is to give the participants as clear and realistic as possible picture of what the career models and workflow of a film composer can be like and what is the role and skillset of the manager/agent representing that composer.