News & Current
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John's score for Tabloid has won Best Original Music Score in the 2012 Cinema Eye Honors!
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John's interview on Spoiler Alert Radio is now online and being syndicated nationally by Pacifica Radio.
- "The Wall - A World Divided" won two awards in the 44th Worldfest Film Festival completion - a Gold Remi Award in the Best of Texas category, and a Special Jury Remi Award. The film, part of a two-part series from director Eric Stange and Spy Pond Productions, honors the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Part II is entitled "After The Wall - A World United".
- Kusiak Music is wrapping up the score for a new film on the life of architect John Portman. John Portman: A Life of Building is directed by Ben Loeterman.
- Tabloid, the new film from Errol Morris premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the indieWIRE poll of film critics for Best Documentary. None other than Roger Ebert had kind words for John,
saying that "As often, Morris surrounds his story with unexpected asides, blindsides us with surprise revelations, and weaves in an ominously urging score by John Kusiak."
- Variety Magazine's Peter Debruge says of Tabloid, "[Morris] punctuates the interviews with jump cuts and blink-long blackouts, allowing John Kusiak's score to position things somewhere between madness and melancholy."
- The first ever National Museum of American Jewish History opened in Philadelphia in November, 2010. The permanent exhibition includes a series of several short films featuring music by John and P. Andrew Willis.
- John has been profiled in Electronic Musician's Composer Spotlight series. Check it out here!
- The five 90-minute films of the "We Shall Remain" series will re-aired this past fall on PBS's American Experience. The films originally aired in April and May of 2009 and were the top non-fiction television downloads on iTunes during the months after they originally aired. Wounded Knee (episode #5) was screened at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
- Laura Longworth's film "Luckey" was featured at the 2009 South by Southwest Film Festival!
- "Have You Seen Andy" winner of the Emmy for Investigative Journalism!
- "Secrecy" winner of Special Jury Award at Sundance 2008 and Best Documentary at the Newport International Film Festival 2008. (See Below)
- "The Singing Revolution", having broken all previous box office records in Estonia, and screened in LA and NYC to rave review, has since appeared in festivals in Canada, France, South Africa, Berlin, Poland, Norway and New Jersey.
Projects currently in production or recently completed include:
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- "After the Wall - A World United"
- 2011
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honoring the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, this second part of the Eric Stange and Spy Pond Production's series explores the events precipitated by the fall of the Berlin Wall.
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- Tabloid
- 2010
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Errol Morris' new film took Best Documentary in the indiWIRE poll of film critics at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival, garnering praise for John's score from Roger Ebert and Variety's Peter Debruge.
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- National Museum of American Jewish History
- 2010
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Kusiak music just completed scores for a series of films in the permanent exhibition of the first ever National Museum of American Jewish History, which opened in Philadelphia in November, 2010.
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- We Shall Remain
- 2007-2009
- a five part television series for American Experience documenting the history of Native Americans from their point of view.
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- "Yellowstone - Our Restless Earth"
- 2009
- a film for the National Park Service shown at the Yellowstone National Park Visitor's Center.
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- Illinois Holocaust Museum Karkomi Permanent Exhibition
- 2009
- opening and closing short films from an 11-part sequence that tells the story of the Holocaust and presents personal stories of Chicago-area survivors.
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- "The Polio Crusade"
- 2009
- a documentary on the March of Dimes' crusade to eradicate Polio, produced by Sarah Colt and based in part on David Oshinsky's Pulitzer Prize winning book, Polio: An American Story. First broadcast on February 2, 2009.
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- ""Scarred Justice - The Orangeburg Massacre - 1968"
- 2009
- a documentary on the Orangeburg, South Carolina shootings that occurred on February 8, 1968.
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- National spots
- for Nationside, Silk Soy Milk, Quaker Oats and Earthlink
Performances
