By Dana Austin Choi
French music composer/producer Daniel Masson ensured that many got the luxury of getting to know the world of fusion music.
His musical curiosity led him on a journey that saw him travel to the world’s most remote locations and record music in the most spiritual places in search of sounds. “Music is about bringing people together,” he said. The Frenchman was most recently in Korea to incorporate his sounds in the silent film, “The Impossible Voyage,” at the Busan International Film Festival.
At 14 he founded a progressive rock band and without any formal training he was soon in Paris teaching guitar and in the evenings he would have gigs in jazz music clubs.
When synthesizers came out, he mastered the art of computer-assisted composition. Not long after that, he released a recording with EMI.
He is best known for his musical contribution to the famous compilation of Buddha Bar. He has also composed for the BBC, SwissAir Airlines and made hundreds of video game soundtracks for Ubisoft; he has also worked for Walt Disney and Paramount Pictures. Masson even won a Cesar award for best music written for a film and two awards at the Cannes Film festival for the movie “Queen Margot”.
His album “Travel Impressions,” which he composed for Buddha Bar led him to record all over the Middle East and his friend Fred Spillmann did the videos filmed in Asia.
What makes “Travel Impressions” so interesting is the mix of those two combinations.
For his own album, “Frequencies,” he travelled to Bangladesh, Syria, Egypt, India and Cambodia. He went there to record people of different cultures.
For more on Daniel Masson check out www.danielmasson.net