Stephen Emmer Mediamusic is one of the premier Dutch mediamusic & sounddesign boutique studios, originally founded as eStation back in 2000 by composer/arranger/producer Stephen Emmer. He created an independent studio with a distinctive and unique vision on how to best soundtrack pictures and is the qualitative market leader in this field in the Netherlands.
Our Mission
Stephen Emmer Mediamusic aims to push the importance of including organized sound as an integral and crucial part of marketing, branding & communication. After all, sound is the more emotional and abstract message-carrier in addressing audiences.
With a keen ear to enhance everybody's point of view, we believe that each member of our team should create music, design sound and post-produce audio in a direct and one-on-one dialog with our clients. Therefore we don’t believe in any intermediates throughout the creative process.
The meaning of true service, ie staying in touch with you not only before and during, but also after a project, is essential to us and we have the intention and means to live up to this adagio.
Quality instead of quantity, selective with a clear objective, on a small scale with emphasis on innovation and distinction.
High impact for a low budget is being achieved by combining low overhead costs with high quality sound creation and production. Smart realization values are of the modern age where distinctive art does not conflict with efficiency.
Class A
We’re extremely experienced in working and partnering on both national and international projects. This can either be done in our own studios or on (your) location with our mobile setup. Alternatively we easily move to world-class recording-studios such as Abbey Road (London, UK), Avatar Studios (NYC, USA), Powersound Studio (Amsterdam, NL) or for instance Wisseloord Studios (Hilversum, NL).
On top of that we have one of the largest international networks with easy access to the best musicians, engineers, lyricists, beat makers, designers and other superb creatives.
Virtual or live, online and on-air, we’re there.
Portfolio
About Stephen
In 1984 Emmer’s interest and focus gradually shifted towards composing music for films, documentaries, station house styles and leaders for TV programs. Some well-known examples of his work in the 80’s are: the tunes of TV programs such as the NOS Journaal, Van Gewest Tot Gewest, Per Seconde Wijzer, Radio 1 Journaal, Waku Waku, and station-calls for broadcasters and stations like KRO, NCRV, Nederland 1, Radio 2 and the NOS.
At that same time Emmer composed music for RTV commercials and audiologos for a wide variety of big commercial brands. He composed music for the movie trailers of IDFA (International Documentary Festival Amsterdam) and FFR (Film Festival Rotterdam) next to creating soundtracks for documentaries. Together with Ronald Abrahams he produced the soundtrack for Transit, the debut film by Eddy Terstall.
From that moment on the specific assignment work for RTV in particular took off, urging Emmer towards full dedication to the job. This resulted in him becoming the first full-time tunes composer in the Netherlands. Emmer then decided to devote himself to the creation of mediamusic, and take the media composer job to the next level.
Emmer developed a clear vision of what this 'new profession' was supposed to be all about. His knowledge later on served as the starting point for his lectures, workshops and guest lectures at various institutes, which later on resulted in the development of official training courses.
Stephen typically performs his own work on guitar, bass guitar, piano and percussion. From the early 80’s on he’s one of the first Dutch sampling keyboard owners and addicts. He then started having his work played by others, such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from London (for KRO station calls) and a session orchestra composed of members of the London Symphony Orchestra (for NOS Journaal of 1989 and 1995). Early 90’s the Metropole Orchestra, under guest conductor David Bedford then performed the tunes Emmer composed as the musical ident for Nederland 1.
In collaboration with DJ Joost van Bellen, Mathilde Santing and multitalent Fay Lovsky, he also produced the soundtrack for 2 fashion shows by Marlies Dekkers.
Image & Sound
Stephen composed music and designed sound for television programs such as RTL Latenight, RTL News, NOS Journaal and RTL Boulevard. In addition, Emmer contributed to various museale exhibitions, such as ‘Van Gogh-Gauguin’ and ‘Monsieur Bing’ for the Van Gogh Museum and ‘Music during War and Peace’ for the Army Museum.
In a collab with Broadcast Magazine he initiated the Dutch Music and Sound Design Award, an annual professional prize for the best tunes on TV, on radio and in commercials.
In 2006 Emmer designed all sounds for the majority of interactive installations of the experience itself next to creating the corporate identity of the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid) in Hilversum. But he also composed for outdoor screen commercials for the Schiphol Airport media group and a DVD for Euronext about the disappearance of the stock exchange floor. Commissioned by Vodafone, Emmer’s team was responsible for the production of the first polyphonic ringtone in the Netherlands.
Music in Motion
Over the years, Emmer has given various seminars, lectures and workshops on the relationship between image and sound, its history and future, as well as its applicability in film, television and multimedia. The tour took him to the Media Academy, the Image & Media Faculty of the HKU, the Art Academy of Groningen, the Arnhem Art Academy and the Conservatory of Groningen. In collaboration with the Media Academy in Hilversum he founded the eStation Training Center.
On an international level Emmer was a speaker at various congresses of Promax BDA and Eyes and Ears from Europe in Baltimore, Orlando, Rome, Seville and Cologne. In the Netherlands he had a regular column in the Audio & Video Report magazine. On top of that he was chairman of the jury of the Gouden Beelden award in the category Best Sound on behalf of Broadcast Magazine. In addition he acted as a freelance concept developer for the interactive department of advertising agency Publicis.
Due to the arrival of day and night television in the Netherlands around 2005, Emmer was the most listened to composer in the country, partly motivated by the fact that he was responsible for composing music for prime time news shows on both public and commercial channels. His tunes got featured across channels and stations, resulting in airplay every 7 minutes. This not only gained him the illustrious ‘the-7-minute-man’ title but also justifies Stephen Emmer Mediamusic’s claim for being the qualitatively market leader in the Netherlands.
Over the past years eStation composed music for basically all RTL TV channels. In addition, And last but not least Stephen was the initiator of Music In Motion, which he founded in a close collaboration with Buma Stemra.
Buma Oeuvre Award Multimedia
Emmer got rewarded for his work with the Buma Oeuvre Award Multimedia. He received the prize on Monday 9 March 2020.
