KIRSTY WHALLEY
Kirsty is a technical wizard. Having a love for things electrical Kirsty made her own metronome when she was 10 and a half. Already then she was making the connection between things technical and things musical. She studied cello and piano at the Junior Royal Academy of Music London and was touring around Europe in orchestras as a young teen. Her obsession with music coupled with matters of geek-ness led her to the ultimate grail of becoming a Tonmeister at the University of Surrey.
As a young engineer-in-the-making, and with the door now opened to professional recording, Kirsty enjoyed gaining valuable experience recording and mixing large scale film scores for Trevor Jones, and also Richard Robbins with the legendary Merchant Ivory films.
She also gained additional experience as a synth programmer, music editor and writing assistant to film composers. Her years of work and tutelage with French composer, Gabriel Yared proved invaluable and working on a sequence of films (Talented Mr Ripley, Cold mountain, Breaking and Entering) with the revered Anthony Minghella provided an amazing opportunity for Kirsty to really establish her career. Kirsty’s music production skills developed further when she took residence at CTS Wembley, and then as an associate at Abbey Road Studios - here she was able to collaborate with other engineers and teams especially on large film projects.
Some of Kirsty’s memorable projects include Harry Potter (The Deathly Hallows parts 1 and 2), The Imitation Game, Alien Covenant, The Hobbit trilogy and Hugo.
In 2012 Kirsty was made an associate director for Danny Boyle’s epic Olympics opening ceremony and also travelled to Russia for a similar role at Sochi in 2014.
Kirsty’s talent to fuse old recordings and new, helped shape the sound of the highly successful reissues for Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin, Roy Orbison and the Beach Boys.
After leaving Abbey Road, Kirsty designed the Sweet Thunder mix room and implemented it’s technical setup. She loves being at the desk and recently has mixed or co-mixed projects such as “Justice League” for Danny Elfman, “Jurassic World - Fallen Kingdom” for Michael Giacchino and “The Crimes of Grindelwald” for James Newton-Howard.
Kirsty has recently completed co-producing a new violin Concerto for Danny Elfman and Sandy Cameron and has just finished additional mixing for Tim Burton’s “Dumbo".
A recipient of nominations and industry awards, Kirsty is probably one of the few women (if not the only) to mix an Oscar winning score - “Shape of Water” for Alexandre Desplat.