Talia Sanders is a 22 year old singer, composer, arranger, producer and performer. She loves musical creativity in all forms, particularly when creatively combining different technologies and platforms together. This is displayed in the A Capella videos showcased below. Over the last 4 years at the University of Edinburgh, she has continued pursuing music as a hobby as well as studying it, and written, recorded and produced 2 solo albums entitled 'Conversations' and 'Choose Joy!'. These can be found on all major platforms, including Spotify and YouTube. During her degree, Talia has explored varying aspects of music including, psychology, performance, analysis and history. In 3rd and 4th year, she was able to tailor her degree to the options she preferred to study. Subsequently, composition has been hugely important and pivotal to her time here and she has been able to exercise creative freedom through her portfolios of compositions and in the Composing for Screen module. Her Suite for String Orchestra is going to be performed on Edinburgh University String Orchestra's summer tour at the start of June 2022. She has also had the opportunity to explore music education through courses in the Kodály approach and Community Music. This has fuelled her interest in Primary education and drawn her attention to the lack of quality music resources available in Primary schools. Consequently, Talia created a small songbook and theoretical resource pack for Primary schools, which was inspired by and adapted from Michael Rosen poems, as part of her composition portfolio this year. In September 2022, she is going to undertake the PGCE in Primary Education at the University of Cambridge.
Bio
PRETTY GOOD LOVE - Talia Sanders
During the first lockdown, creative multiscreen videos started to appear as people experimented with technology. Prior to this, Jacob Collier had released some incredible multiscreen A Capella videos. Both these things inspired me to write, record and film my own A Capella videos. 'Pretty Good Love' was the first time I had written and filmed my own A Capella composition. I had a lot of fun writing, recording and filming 8 parts, ranging from Alto 2 to Soprano 1, and wearing different outfits and hairstyles to keep the content engaging and fun. As this was written for my Composition portfolio, it is longer than most songs and explores 3 different moods and styles. I also created a score of the composition.
FEELING GOOD - Nina Simone (arr. Talia Sanders)
To mark my 21st birthday, which happened to be in the middle of the 2nd lockdown in 2021, I decided to arrange, record and film Nina Simone's 'Feeling Good'. I had a lot of fun doing this and completed arranging, recording, filming and editing this song in 4 days! I absolutely loved the original song and subsequently wanted to see how I could creatively arrange it for A Capella choir. One way I did this was by taking a word or phrase and using that as the source of inspiration for a section of the song. This can be seen at the very start, where I have taken the word 'Birds' from the first line 'Birds flying high', and created an overlapping and undulating texture.
FORGET YOU - CeeLo Green (arr. Talia Sanders)
This was the 2nd A Capella music video arrangement which I undertook and it helped me significantly develop my video editing skills in Final Cut Pro. I really enjoyed creating an arrangement of a song that was very popular in my early teens, and which was sung at my school's House Music event. As Jacob Collier does in his multiscreen videos, I included funny hats and different outfits to created a fun and engaging on-screen presence.
VIVA LA VIDA - Coldplay (arr. Talia Sanders) (feat. Edinburgh University String Orchestra)
This was a huge project to undertake but an immensely rewarding and exciting experience. Looking for creative ways to spend my time in the first lockdown, I asked my string orchestra (Edinburgh University String Orchestra) if they would be up for the challenge of virtually performing my arrangement of Coldplay's 'Viva la Vida'. They were very keen, so I began the big task of arranging it for string orchestra. Then I distributed the parts to the players and gave specific instructions on how to film themselves playing the music. Once I had received the videos, I extracted the audio and created a carefully mixed version of the song to make it sound like we were playing in the same place, with the same acoustic. Then I imported the mixed audio with the videos and creatively edited the videos to produce this result. The video received thousands of views and was a source of joy and creativity in a time which was challenging for so many. It also showed me how well technology can bring people together who are all around the world, both for the players in this video and for the audience who watched it.
IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL - Horatio Spafford and Philip Bliss (arr. Talia Sanders)
My arrangement of the classic hymn 'It Is Well with My Soul' is really special to me as it includes all the members of my immediate family and because it has such a hope-filled message. It was really interesting including 6 other people into an A Capella project, who also happened to be family members. I couldn't work in the same way or at the same rapid pace that I had subjected myself to in the other projects. It showed me the importance of encouragement and patience, particularly with my youngest brothers who found this more challenging to do. Like the other A Capella videos I have produced, I recorded all the audio first, mixed the audio to create a balanced sound and then utilised the latter instead of the audio from the videos I captured. In addition, I really enjoyed experimenting with scrunchy harmonies and seeing the ways different voice types can blend together to create the sound world I had envisioned.
THE BLESSING - Kari Jobe, Cody Carnes and Elevation Worship (arr. Talia Sanders)
This arrangement was the first one I did with my family. It was an immense undertaking but well worth the effort. I laugh at myself because each time I do a project like this, I say that I will never do it again because it is so demanding on one's energy, creativity and time, yet I keep doing them! It just goes to show how much I do love this type of creativity. This project was incredibly special, not only because I did it with my family, but because it impacted so many people when it was released. It was incredibly encouraging to see how so many strangers from all round the world were moved by the video, as it reached around 10,000 views across the platforms. I was also really encouraged to see a choir in Sweden request the score so that they could perform it! I have loved using technology to create joyful and exciting pieces of music.
HUMAN - adwuu and Talia Sanders
During the 2nd lockdown in 2021, I started writing my 2nd album called 'Choose Joy!'. I knew that I wanted to include several collaborations with friends and music artists, so I reached out to Adam Wu (adwuu), who I went to school with, to collaborate on this track, 'Human'. Adam is an incredible musician and producer and did a fantastic job on this track. 'Human' reminds us that it really is ok to be human, to make mistakes and stumble, but to remember that we can get back up again and experience healing. It is hope-filled, joyful and is designed to get you dancing!
