About Stephen O’Connell
Stephen is a passionate and expressive composer, performer, engineer and educator based in Brisbane, Australia. Creativity has been a cornerstone in his life, constantly a drive and a passion, with an eclectic taste in styles, influences and mediums. Whether it be in music and audio, or photography, videography and design, he enjoys every moment, no matter the project he finds himself working on, relishing the opportunity to add his own expression and creativity to every project. His professionalism, attention to detail and ability to work to brief enable him to collaborate with other artists, film directors and businesses, stepping into many creative projects while understanding and supporting their core vision.
With such a passion for all things creative and an eagerness to share knowledge, Stephen has dedicated much of his professional life to teaching others, lecturing in music and audio production as well as sharing online tutorials to help emerging artists and creatives strengthen and refine their skills. He defines educating others as one of the most rewarding experiences of his professional career and will always be there for future students to help them on their first steps into the creative industry.
Composer and Songwriter
Taking a “post-genre” approach to music composition, Stephen has written works for media scores, orchestras, chamber ensembles and popular music. As a classically trained composer with a passion for genre fluidity, his music often embodies many influences and styles, adapting well to the storyline of a film or the character of an ensemble. Specialising in media composition, Stephen’s passion for emotive, dramatic and beautiful scores leads to a piece of music that not only moves the audience, but supports and enhances the message of the story. The ability to provide a well balanced and mixed final production of a professional and engaging piece helps give Stephen an edge when working with clients on their production, and he works diligently on creating the right sounds, themes and atmospheres to support the vision of the director/producer.
Recent Works
In recent years, Stephen has written a number of unique scores, such as the score for the short film “Out of Sight”, written and directed by Shannon Brimelow and submitted to the My Rode Showreel contest. His scores always utilise his unique blend of orchestral sounds, electronic elements and manipulated sampled sounds. He was also awarded 3rd Place in the Score Relief 2022 Film Score Competition, hosted and organised by The Cue Tube, for his textural and experimental score to “I Catch You”, a Four of Wands Productions short film.
Stephen’s library music work has also been recognised by the Xperimenta Project sampling company, where his piece “The Waters Below”, was featured on their web store to help promote their free library MINIMA. He is also a lead writer in the pop/alt rock band, Blood for Bruises, which released their debut single and EP in 2020, with work already commenced on their debut studio album. In addition to this, Stephen has also produced and released many tracks direct to SoundCloud, increasing his portfolio and demonstrating his wide range of styles, genres and musical emotions.
Awards
3rd Place - Score Relief 2022 Film Score Competition
Lecturing and Teaching
Stephen is currently a Lecturer at SAE Institute Brisbane, lecturing in Music and Audio Production and helping to bring the Bachelor of Songwriting and Music Production to life. He is also a member of the Music Course Committee, who oversee the planning, development and delivery of the music Diploma and Bachelor courses, and the National Unit Coordinator and Unit Designer for a number of units.
Teaching has been a life long passion, with over a decade of adult learning and teaching experience, and Stephen finds it both a rewarding and enriching experience for both himself and his students. He teaches across a wide array of topics, including music production, studio and DAW use, composition and orchestration, music theory, audio production and live performance skills. Having delivered Masterclasses in film and media composition, worked on developing and realising creative project management, and connecting students with the wider creative industries, Stephen has dedicated much of his professional life to helping others achieve their creative aspirations. With a wealth of knowledge and a background in classical composition and social research, his unique energy and drive in the classroom helps excite his students to follow their passion and become life long learners.
Online Teaching and Tutorials
Across 2021, Stephen has started to leverage YouTube as a platform to share his knowledge and skills as a musician, composer and audio engineer with the wider music community. Believing in the power of learning to overcome any challenge you face in your creative projects, Stephen has released over 80 tutorial videos dedicated to topics like music production, composition and songwriting, Logic Pro tips and tricks, Kontakt sampling and audio engineering. Along with these standalone tutorials, he has also developed multi-video tutorial series, diving deep and extensively into different musical topics. With many more videos and tutorial series planned, Cmd Shift New is set to become a wealth of knowledge for the aspiring composer and audio engineer.
Sampling and Software Library Development
Over the last few years, Stephen has developed a keen interest in the creation of sample libraries. Recording evocative and inspiring sounds to then be built into Kontakt Sample Instruments has become a passion and he has decided to share many of these experimentations through the open samplist and composer community, Pianobook. You can download all of his available libraries free through the link below.
Stephen has also worked on commercial libraries, providing graphic design, control animation and Kontakt GUI scripting. Recently, he has worked on the debut sample library from Dark Force Audio, “Subversion”, and is currently working on a release with ZenDAW. Providing this service helps fill a niche in the market, with Kontakt KSP scripting being both a rare and sought after skill. Seeing this as an opportunity to help share the knowledge, many of Stephen’s videos on the Cmd Shift New Youtube Channel revolve around how to create a Kontakt library and script a GUI interface and he is working on building a Kontakt Knowledge Base through his own site.
Study and Research
Masters of Music - University of Queensland
Bachelor of Music (Hons) - Queensland Conservatorium of Music
Stephen has studied classical and contemporary/popular music composition at both the Queensland Conservatorium of Music and the University of Queensland. While studying, he majored in both composition and research, studying under composers Gerard Brophy, Dr Robert Davidson and Dr Christopher Perren on both research and composition projects. His Masters research saw him exploring the subject of DAW based composition and achieving realism within MIDI sample libraries. Through a systematic literature review and an autoenthnographic case study, his pragmatic research aimed to analyse the limitations of traditional staff notation on the compositional workflow, how a DAW may enhance the compositional workflow and whether MIDI orchestration can achieve a realistic representation of acoustic performances.
Stephen is currently preparing his proposal to undertake his PhD studies, where he intends to continue his research into DAW based composition, exploring three main areas of interest; technology in compositional education, the compositional workflow, and the demonstration of portfolio works, all revolving around the impact of the DAW on a composer’s workflow.
Live Performance
Performing online and locally in the Brisbane music scene, Stephen has been apart of a number of bands and solo music projects across the last decade. As a vocalist and guitarist, he currently fronts the pop/alt rock band Blood for Bruises, a British rock inspired band with a distinctive sound. Stephen has also performed as a solo artist and hopes to return to his solo performance acts through online live streams in the future.
