Darrell Alexander
As well as gaining a first class music degree and studying the violin at the Royal Academy of Music, the Leipzig Conservatoire, and the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Darrell gained an insight into the world of music having studied and had master classes with some of the world’s greatest composers and musicians including Olivier Messiaen, Leonard Bernstein, Gyorgy Ligeti, John Willliams, Pierre Boulez, the Amadeus Quartet, Anne Sophie Mutter and Itzhak Perlman. He went on to record and perform at the highest musical level and in many of the finest concert halls around the world, from the Carnegie Hall in New York, the Musikverein in Vienna to the Hollywood Bowl in LA, as a member of Sir Neville Marriner’s internationally renowned chamber orchestra, The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. He also performed with many of the top conductors, soloists and orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, The Leipzig Chamber Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra. It was with the Academy that he worked on the soundtrack to the Oscar winning film, The English Patient.
This film sparked his love of film music, which he feels bridges the gap between symphonic and more contemporary popular music. In 1996 he formed COOL Music Ltd (COOL stands for Chamber Orchestra Of London – www.chamberorchestraoflondon.com) to provide composers/artists with a new generation of musicians talent and went on to contract musicians on numerous films, games and TV dramas, as well as acting as string MD on several tours for Madonna. At this time he was also honoured to be asked by Sir George Martin, the Beatles manager, to consult and organise his last album In My Life, featuring the speech and vocals of Sean Connery, Jim Carrey, Goldie Hawn, Celine Dion, Jeff Beck etc.
In 2000, COOL Music Ltd, as well as contracting musicians, formed a composer agency and now represents many of the finest Oscar, Bafta and Emmy award winning Film, TV & Games composers working in the industry today. As the owner, music producer and consultant at COOL Music Ltd in London, he has been involved in the music production on hundreds of films, games, television dramas and records, from Jan Kaczmarek’s Oscar winning score to Miramax’s Finding Neverland (starring Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Dustin Hoffman) to Downton Abbey for NBC Universal to Warner Brother’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Recent success includes The Downton Abbey Movie, The Invisible Man, Emma, Shazam, Yesterday and ‘It2’ for New Line.
Ollie Fitzgerald
Ollie joined COOL Music Ltd as a Composer Agent in 2015, representing composers on hundreds of films, games and TV dramas, from AAA games franchises Horizon Zero Dawn (Sony Interactive) and Batman: Gotham Knights (WB Games), to the Oscar-nominated film The Wife and Amazon’s Troop Zero, to flagship television dramas like The Crown, Marcella and Doctor Who.
A career in music was always on the cards for Ollie as he was born into a musical family and began playing the piano from the age of 4. After graduating from Brunel University with a music degree, specialising in composition and performance, he cut his teeth with a placement at Abbey Road Studios and went on to work for the global artist management company IMG Artists.
Before joining COOL Music Ltd, Ollie ran the Promotion and Commissioning Department in the music publishing division of Oxford University Press. In that role he was responsible for managing all new concert commissions from institutions like the BBC Proms, LSO, Royal Opera House and English National Ballet, and promoting the roster of house composers, among them Michael Finnissy, Howard Skempton and Gerald Barry.
Stacey Neisig
Stacey started her career at Hamstein Publishing in Austin, Texas. As Royalty Manager at Hamstein, she worked with the catalogues of ZZ Top, Clint Black, Jerry Williams and songwriters Tom Shapiro and Tony Martin, amongst others.
She moved to Los Angeles in 1997 to work with Criterion Music Corp (now part of Universal Music Publishing), the independent publishing company that has been in business for over 65 years and has in excess of 10,000 copyrights. The Standard catalogue includes hits from the 20’s to 60’s including the songs of Lee Hazlewood (i.e. “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’ ”, and the catalogues of Charlie Parker, Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan and many notable jazz standards and catalogues. The Contemporary catalogue includes the songs “I Can Love You Like That” (a hit on the Pop and Country charts) along with the catalogues of Lyle Lovett, Rodney Crowell & Rosanne Cash. Recent signings to the catalogue have included film composer Cyril Morin, Adam Anders (Glee) and Nikki Hassman (Glee) along with the band Warpaint. During her time at Criterion she oversaw domestic and international music operations for the company including royalties, licensing and pitching music to commercials, games, TV and film.
Over the last few years Stacey has worked as a consultant for Universal Music Publishing in Santa Monica, COOL Music Ltd and Du Vinage Publishing (based in Los Angeles and London), a specialist composer publishing company. Throughout her years at Criterion, she has always had an interest in the gaming world, regularly attending conferences. It is with this interest and knowledge of the games community as well as her specialist music knowledge that has led her to work with COOL Music Interactive in Los Angeles.
Aria Khrime
Before joining COOL Music Ltd in 2022, Aria worked at HotHouse Music Ltd as a Music Supervisor and Composer Agent. During her time there, she worked on Oscar and BAFTA nominated films Emma, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Eurovision, Cyrano, Netflix series Dracula, the musical adaptation Cats and Amazon Studio’s Cinderella. As a music supervisor she had the pleasure of working on projects with numerous COOL composers including Anne Dudley, Atli Övarsson, David Schweitzer, so a position at COOL Music was an obvious career progression for her.
Being classically trained from a young age, Aria always knew she wanted to follow a path in music. She is an accomplished flautist and has further training on the piano, guitar and voice. She received her music degree from Surrey University specialising in composition and performance, which helped her gain a deeper understanding of orchestral and contemporary music and sparked her love of film music.
Zoë Bennett
Zoë works across soundtrack releases, PR, creative projects and finance. Before joining COOL in 2014 she gained a Master’s in Music Management and Arts Administration from Goldsmiths, University of London and a BSc in Pathology and Microbiology from Bristol University. She has worked for several arts organisations including Rich Mix, Cheltenham Jazz Festival and The RSA, and is an active musician, playing bass guitar.