Brett Aplin is an ARIA nominated, AFI/AACTA and APRA award winning screen composer with extensive and varied credits across drama, documentary, feature film and children’s television.
He has worked with some of the very best screen practitioners writing across a variety of genres, his music having been broadcast locally on ABC1, SBS, Network Ten, Channel 7, STAN and internationally on Netflix, Disney+, STARZ, Acorn TV, BBC, Nickelodeon, National Geographic, Animal Planet, The History Channel, ZDF, and Discovery among others.
In the year 2000, in what proved to be a significant break, Brett won the annual Pete Carpenter Fellowship (BMI Foundation, NYC) and travelled to Los Angeles to work with legendary Emmy and Grammy award-winning television composer Mike Post where he composed music for Law and Order: SVU (there’s a good story to go with this one) and generally couldn’t believe his luck. It was a life changing experience.
Since then he has co-composed 34 hours of internationally broadcast television drama, scored 47 documentary films including many that have attracted international awards and accolades, composed or co-composed almost 50 hours of children’s television across 5 series that have screened in over 170 countries worldwide, and has scored multiple documentary features and feature films.
He has been nominated for thirteen APRA Australian Screen Music Awards, winning “Best Music for a Documentary” for Tiger Dynasty (2012) and “Best Music for a Short Film” for Lucy Wants to Kill Herself (2009). He has also been awarded an Australian Film Institute (now AACTA) Award for his work on Rare Chicken Rescue in 2008, received an AFI nomination for his contribution to the acclaimed documentary A Thousand Encores: the Ballets Russes in Australia in 2010, and AACTA nominations for James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenge 3D (2014) and Splice Here: A Projected Odyssey (2023).
In 2019 Brett co-founded Zeitgeist Music with screen composers Burkhard Dallwitz and Dmitri Golovko, a collaboration committed to providing original, high quality scores for TV drama, feature films and documentaries. Since then they have scored two seasons of the ’60s detective spin-off Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries for AcornTV and Channel 7, the fabulous 8-part crime / horror series The Gloaming for STAN, ABC / Disney and STARZ and more.
Recently Brett has concluded work on the 2nd series of The Bureau of Magical Things for Nickelodeon and the feature documentary Splice Here: A Projected Odyssey. His recent score for the amazing STAN feature documentary No Mercy, No Remorse was recognised with an APRA Screen Music Award nomination for ‘Best Music for a Documentary’, and his stunning soundtrack album from the film with a further APRA Screen Music Award nomination and an ARIA Award nomination! He followed this up with a second consecutive ARIA nomination for Splice Here: A Projected Odyssey late last year…
In 2015 Brett and Burkhard co-founded a Melbourne-based screen composer network in part to support and mentor emerging screen composers but also to build a community for screen composers at all levels of the industry, to share experiences in what is an increasingly complex and challenging environment.
Brett was raised just outside Red Cliffs, a small town south of Mildura in country Victoria, Australia. Inspired by his grandmother he took up the piano at age 5, taking classical lessons throughout his schooling, while both stepping up on stage with bands and down into orchestra pits along the way. It was during these years he also developed a deep and abiding love for film and an unhealthy obsession with browsing the local video store. However, it wasn’t a straight line from rural Victoria into film and television scoring. In his final year of high school it was gently suggested he cease formal musical studies to concentrate on a more practical and realistic (and financially viable!) “fallback” career. Being a dutiful lad he heeded this advice for a time, travelling a wild and lengthy detour past a PhD in Immunology before finally coming to his senses!
Oct 2024
Brett Aplin is an ARIA nominated, AFI/AACTA and APRA Screen Music Award winning screen composer with extensive and varied credits across drama, documentary, feature film and children’s television.
He has worked with some of the very best screen practitioners writing across a variety of genres, his music having been broadcast locally on ABC1, SBS, Network Ten, Channel 7, STAN and internationally on Netflix, Disney+, STARZ, Acorn TV, BBC, Nickelodeon, National Geographic, Animal Planet, The History Channel, ZDF, and Discovery among others.
Brett was raised just outside Red Cliffs, a small town south of Mildura in country Victoria, Australia. Inspired by his grandmother he took up the piano at age 5, taking classical lessons throughout his schooling, while both stepping up on stage with bands and down into orchestra pits along the way. It was during these years he also developed a deep and abiding love for film and an unhealthy obsession with browsing the local video store. However, it wasn’t a straight line from rural Victoria into film and television scoring. In his final year of high school it was gently suggested he cease formal musical studies to concentrate on a more practical and realistic (and financially viable!) “fallback” career. Being a dutiful lad he heeded this advice for a time, travelling a wild and lengthy detour past a PhD in Immunology before finally coming to his senses.
In the year 2000, in what proved to be a significant break, Brett won the annual Pete Carpenter Fellowship (BMI Foundation, NYC) and travelled to Los Angeles to work with legendary Emmy and Grammy award-winning television composer Mike Post where he composed music for Law and Order: SVU (there’s a good story to go with this one) and generally couldn’t believe his luck. It was a life changing experience.
Since then he has co-composed 34 hours of internationally broadcast television drama, scored 44 documentary films including many that have attracted international awards and accolades, composed or co-composed almost 50 hours of children’s television across 5 series that have screened in over 170 countries worldwide, and has scored multiple documentary features and feature films.
He has been nominated for thirteen APRA Australian Screen Music Awards, winning “Best Music for a Documentary” for Tiger Dynasty (2012) and “Best Music for a Short Film” for Lucy Wants to Kill Herself (2009). He has also been awarded an Australian Film Institute (now AACTA) Award for his work on Rare Chicken Rescue in 2008, received an AFI nomination for his contribution to the acclaimed documentary A Thousand Encores: the Ballets Russes in Australia in 2010, and an AACTA nomination for James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenge 3D in 2014.
In 2019 Brett co-founded Zeitgeist Music with screen composers Burkhard Dallwitz and Dmitri Golovko, a collaboration committed to providing original, high quality scores for TV drama, feature films and documentaries. Since then they have scored two seasons of the ’60s detective spin-off Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries for AcornTV and Channel 7, the fabulous 8-part crime / horror series The Gloaming for STAN, ABC / Disney and STARZ and more.
Recently Brett has concluded work on the 2nd series of The Bureau of Magical Things for Nickelodeon and the feature documentary Splice Here: A Projected Odyssey. His recent score for the amazing STAN feature documentary No Mercy, No Remorse was recognised with an APRA Screen Music Award nomination for ‘Best Music for a Documentary’, and his stunning soundtrack album from the film with a further APRA Screen Music Award nomination and an ARIA Award nomination!
In 2015 Brett and Burkhard co-founded a Melbourne-based screen composer network in part to support and mentor emerging screen composers but also to build a community for screen composers at all levels of the industry, to share experiences in what is an increasingly complex and challenging environment.
It looks like he won’t have to fall back on that career as an Immunologist, at least not anytime soon!
April 2023
Zeitgeist Music was established as a collaborative team in 2018 to provide original music scores for film & television.
Combining the talents of multi-award winning screen composers Burkhard Dallwitz, Brett Aplin and Dmitri Golovko, Zeitgeist Music has collaborated on international feature films such as The Longest Shot, TV drama productions including the ABC/Netflix series Pine Gap, Network Seven’s Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries, Network Ten’s My Life is Murder and the critically acclaimed STAN/ABC Disney drama series The Gloaming.
The composers at Zeitgeist Music have over 55 years of combined experience in film and television productions, and have produced a hugely diverse back catalogue of award winning works, that range from hybrid electro-acoustic, small ensemble to full orchestral scores.
In the ever-changing landscape of tight and often overlapping post-production schedules, Zeitgeist Music is uniquely placed to deliver original music scores of the highest quality.
