About Sunny
SUNNY LAZIC – СУНЧИЦА ЛАЗИЋ – С.Ч. Ц – SunChiTza
Sound Engineer/Music Producer/Aspiring Film & Games Composer
My friends call me Sunny, but my given name is Sunčica, pronounced something like Sun-Chi-Tza. It is an old-fashioned Serbian fairy-tale name… Сунчица. The abbreviation С. Ч. Ц is the name of my band. С.Ч. Ц – SunChiTza https://www.sunchitza.com
My family is from Serbia… I was born and raised in Sweden, but the place I call home is London. I have been based in Britain since the early 90’s. Spent the 90’s and the noughties working as a sound engineer, first at Mayfair Recording studios, and later freelanced. Worked with a lot of the Britpop … Pulp, Mansun, Radiohead… and Triphop hop bands…Portishead, Massive Attack … and even classic rock ‘n’ rollers like Led Zeppelin. The first track I engineered was a B-side for Tricky.
Eventually I started writing music (film music). When one of my favourite film directors, Guy Maddin, showed interest in my music, I decided to take it seriously. I started toying with the idea of orchestrating my tracks, they had been purely electronic up to that point. This eventually led to the desire to study classical music. This is where I find myself now- studying classical composition at the OCA, under the tutelage of Chris Lawry, Ben Gaunt and Carla Rees. After taking my BA I hope to do an MA in Cinematic Orchestration and Games Music at Guy Michelmore’s ‘Thinkspace Education’.
Other THINGS in the pipeline are collaborations with a couple of the guys from Spiritualized and a project with Pete Greenway of the Fall and Imperial Wax. In addition, I have started up a project which will incorporate Chinese instruments into my soundscapes and have asked the British-Chinese singer extraordinaire FiFi Rong to lend me her voice. Another upcoming collaboration is an audio-visual installation together with Charley Sharp of the Californian band PollyAnna Valentine. Charley will sing mantras and recite the teachings and sutras of Sri Aurobindo to a back drop of vibrational psychedelic flower projections on top of some of my Indian influenced drone music. Aside from composition and film scoring I enjoy making visual art. I experiment a lot with film and animation. Together with my flatmate, the sculptor Annika Hellgren, I have recently created an Arts collective called The SunAn Collective. We intend to carry out cross collaborations between different art forms, creating sound sculptures with audio visual and sculptural elements.
BIOGRAPHY
I began my career in my native country Sweden working in the studios at Radio Gothenburg. In 1990 I moved to London where I studied ‘Advanced Sound Recording and Production Techniques’. Upon completion of my course I relocated to Amsterdam for a couple of years, first working as an assistant engineer at the legendary Wisseloord studio in Hilversum. Subsequently I was offered a position as the in-house engineer for Tink! Records. They were a house music record label producing cutting edge EDM. It was an exciting era in the Dutch club scene. We would be putting down a mix in the afternoon and then literally taking the white label pressing to play at night in the clubs, getting an immediate reaction to the tunes. Whilst I was there I also had the pleasure of working with singer H.R of Bad Brains on one of his side projects.
After two years I returned to London where I engineered for some of London’s top venues like the Marquee, The Dome and many more. In late 1993 I got an in-house position at Mayfair Studios. Artists I worked with included the likes of Plant and Page, Black Sabbath, U2, The Refugee camp, Kylie Minogue, Tom Jones, Tricky, Massive Attack, Pulp, Suede, Mansun.
In 1995 I started freelance engineering for various large studios (many now owned by Miloco) such as Marcus, Roundhouse, Swanyard, Alaska, Orinoco, Masterock, Battery, Livingston and Abbey Road. Around 2000 I started my own home recording studio together with a fellow engineer from Mayfair studios. We divide the time between recording/producing other artists and also writing our own music.
Since 2008 I have started writing for film after interest in my music from one of my favourite film directors, Guy Maddin. My music is a mixture of styles. It’s modern electronic music with influences of rock, Balkan music and Tango (I dance tango). My parents were originally from Serbia and I grew up listening to both Eastern and Western music. All these influences have worked their way into my songs.
Once I realised that my music might fit to film I started toying with the idea of orchestrating my songs. I became interested in learning how to do this myself, rather than having someone else orchestrate it for me. I have recently started taking online courses with Thinkspace in order to learn more about film composition, cinematic orchestration and games music composition. I also want to keep my hand in on the sound-side of things. In aid of learning more about the process I took an Advanced Post Production course at SSR London in 2013. Ideally I’d love to be able to be responsible for both the sound and the music in the projects I’m involved in.
My interest in cinematic orchestration and film composition has also awakened an interest in Classical, or ‘Western Arts Music’ in me, which in turn has led me to studying composition at the OCA.
Aside from studying at CAMP I have been taking various short courses and master classes. A year ago, I discovered that one of my heroes- the composer Gavin Bryars, was giving a 5-day residential composition master class at CAMP in Aulus-les-Bains. I jumped at the chance to join the course. It was a life changing experience with Gavin being one of the kindest, most gracious and encouraging teachers I’ve ever had. He really helped me develop as a composer. The generosity and support of the CAMP people and the progressive and nurturing space they provided in the magical surroundings of the French Pyrenees was spectacular. So much so, I repeated the experience this year. At CAMP I met some wonderful musicians and fellow composers who will become friends for life and future collaborators. Amongst other things I will be starting a project with the Australian film composer, Claire Deak soon and I will be looking to use Rodrigo Fuentealba Palavicino on guitar for a few songs.
Future collaborations include a project with a couple of the guys from Spiritualized and a project with Pete Greenway of the Fall and the newly formed Imperial Wax. In addition, I have started up a project which will incorporate Chinese instruments into my soundscapes and have asked the British-Chinese singer extraordinaire FiFi Rong to lend me her voice. Another upcoming collaboration is an audio-visual installation together with Charley Sharp of the Californian band PollyAnna Valentine. Charley will sing mantras and recite the teachings and sutras of Sri Aurobindo to a back drop of vibrational psychedelic flower projections on top of some of my Indian influenced drone music. Aside from composition and film scoring I enjoy making visual art. I experiment a lot with film and animation. Together with my flatmate, the sculptor Annika Hellgren, I have recently created an Arts collective called The SunAn Collective. We intend to carry out cross collaborations between different art forms, creating sound sculptures with audio visual and sculptural elements.
Sound Engineer/Music Producer Credits
Equipment and Software I am fluent on;
Apple Mac user for as long as they’ve been around.
ProTools 9 and 10, including a certificate for the 210P exam.
Logic Audio 9 and Logic Pro X. Cubase
Sibelius Ultimate
Currently learning , Avid Composer and FMOD .
A variety of traditional analogue recording equipment, most notably
SSL E and G-series analogue desks, Neve VR Flying faders analog desk,
Studer Analog 24″ tape machines.
CURRICULUM VITAE
2020 Jun 25th – Sept 25. 12 week course in Sibelius Ultimate software at Berklee Online University.
2020 Aug 18-25th Five-day Masterclass in Composition with Gavin Bryars run by CAMP FR , but held over zoom.
2019 Nov – Jan 2020 Extracurricular workshop and flute composition project ran by music programme leader Dr. Carla Rees at the OCA. The flute composition was performed by Carla Rees and recorded at the UCA.
2019 May 15-20th Five-day residential Masterclass in Composition with Gavin Bryars at CAMP FR in the French Pyrenees.
2018 April Five-day residential Masterclass in Composition with Gavin Bryars at CAMP FR in the French Pyrenees.
2016-Ongoing Online courses with ‘Thinkspace’ for film composition and cinematic orchestration.
2010-2017 Ongoing Recording and Co-producing (several albums worth) for the band ‘PollyAnna Valentine’.
2013-2014 Attended an industry course in Advanced Post Production (Audio) for film and broadcast at SSR London. Including the completion of a ProTools 210P exam.
2009-2014 Starting work on my own film music in response to interest from director Guy Maddin.
2005-2008 Touring worldwide (as crew and tour manager) with Japanese noise artist Keiji Haino.
2005 Touring Germany (as crew and tour manager) with Addie brik.
2000-2014 Recording and mixing (various projects) for the artist Addie Brik.
2000-2014 Setting up a semi professional home studio and writing my own music. Splitting my time between music writing
and producing and recording other artists.
1998-1999 Recording album for Raissa at Orinoco studios (now one of the Miloco studios)
1996-1998 Working as a freelance engineer for several prominent London studios.
1993-1995 Working as an in-house engineer at Mayfair Recording Studios.
1990-1992 Working as an in-house engineer for TINK! Records in Amsterdam.
1991 Working as an assistant engineer in Wisseloord studios, Hilversum (just outside Amsterdam)
1990 Move to London in order to attend a full time Sound Engineering and Production course in London, at ‘Sound and Media Technologies’.
1988-1989 Doing a foundation course in Contemporary Dance at the Ballet Academy in Gothenburg, Sweden.
1987-1988 Work placement on Gothenburg Radio as a music producer for one of their bi-weekly shows.
1984-1987 Taking A-levels in Gothenburg, Sweden.
1977-1984 Taking the Swedish equivalent to GCSEs.
https://www.instagram.com/sunnylazic/