Hollie Buhagiar Wins Michael Danino Award
The Gibraltar Live Music Society (GLMS) have announced Hollie Buhagiar as the winner of this year's Michael Danino Award.
A statement from the Gibraltar Live Music Society (GLMS) follows below:
The Award launched in 2017 is the brainchild of the GLMS Committee and is awarded to the musician whom they feel has had the most energy, passion and drive on and off the stage as well as acknowledging their accomplishments. Previous winners include James Montegriffo, Adrian Pisarello, Mark Muscat and Robin Fitzpatrick. Due to the world pandemic, no recipient was awarded the accolade in 2020.
A spokesperson for the GLMS said: "This year has been quite a challenge for musicians across the Gibraltar Music Scene but despite that, they have worked hard behind the scenes to work on new projects and this year's recipient has definitely done just that. This musician has flown the Gibraltar flag everywhere with a lot of grace and we can't wait to see where their career goes from here."
The GLMS are pleased to announce that this year's recipient is Hollie Buhagiar.
BIOGRAPHY
Hollie Buhagiar is a multi award-winning Gibraltarian composer based in London, who specialises in crafting bespoke scores for film, TV and Theatre. She has worked on a plethora of projects including shorts, feature length films and series alongside Grammy and Academy Award winning engineers in the finest studios across London.
Graduating from Leeds College of Music with first-class honours in Music production, Hollie continued on to complete a Masters at the National Film and Television School.
Throughout her career she has been hailed for her unique and varied sonic palette as well as her ability to create fascinating scores that approach traditional composition from a new and exciting perspective.
Hollie's experience spans worldwide and includes work for the likes of Amazon, Sky, Channel 4, BFI, NOWNESS, Creative England, Tate, The Guardian, Film London, VICE and BBC. Her projects have received critical acclaim winning various prestigious awards, these include a Porsche Award, a Gold British Arrow and the McLaren Award for Best British Animation, as well as being a two time Unity Awards nominee. One of her works 'Poles Apart' won the 2018 British Short Animation BAFTA. Hollie also received the 2018 Best Composer Award at the Underwire Film Festival after having received a total of five nominations across two years. In addition to this she was nominated for the 2018 Best Sound Design Offie Award with her theatre debut in 'Collective Rage: A Play in Five Betties'. In 2020 she took home the Gold for Best Music Track at the LA Motion Picture Festival, the Best Music Award at the Top Indie Awards, and a nomination for Best Music at the UK Fashion Film Festival. 2021 thus far has seen her win the Best Composer Award at the Paris International Short Film Festival, as well as Best Score at the UVF Festival and various other nominations. Her acclaimed chamber music work for string quintet 'Astilbe' recently had its world premiere performance in Rhode Island and was then screened at the annual Hear Her Score concert. She was further honoured with Gibraltar's first ever Extraordinary Achievement Award for her work in the arts.
Hollie's latest includes a documentary TV series soon to be aired, a commercial series for VICE, 'Black Birth' a documentary supported by the Tribeca film Festival and Queen Latifah and 'Bug Therapy' an animated film directed by Jason Reisig (Smallfoot) featuring the voices of Dr Phil, Jay Leno, Meghan Trainor and Sterling K. Brown to name but a few. She is has just completed feature documentaries 'Finding Thule' , 'Extinction Rebellion For Life' and 'Women Behind The Wheel' as well as the fiction short 'CRADLED ' with Channel 4 and a six-part TV show for NBC and Sky Sports. Hollie is currently scoring the fiction feature 'To A Cinder' as well as 'Red Shoes' an animation with GiF (Girls in Film) and a project with Netflix. She is additionally writing the sound and music for 'Cameraman' a theatre show premiering at the 2022 Vaults Festival.
Aside from this, Hollie is an extremely accomplished session vocalist having worked on everything from prime time television shows to worldwide advertising campaigns, the most recent of which being seasons eleven, twelve and thirteen of BBC's 'Doctor Who 'as well as their first season of 'I Can See Your Voice' and various ad campaigns and trailers for Sky Cinema and Netflix. Her vocal work can currently be heard across cinemas in the UK.
On being awarded this year's Michael Danino Award, Ms Buhagiar said: "It means a great deal to have been presented with this award. I’ve missed home so much, over these last couple of years most especially. You’re all always in my thoughts and it’s so wonderful to know I’m there in yours too. Thank you to everyone involved in choosing me for this wonderful honour, I am so excited for what’s to come, I’ll be flying our flag as high as I possibly can!"
