DEAR MUSIC and Animation Enthusiast

Welcome to my website. Here you can browse my past, current and upcoming projects. Keep an eye out for online links to films, new music releases and live shows - or simply see if you find joy in the projects I share on this site.

Yours always in music,

Mart-Marie

Biography

Mart-Marie Snyman is an award-winning film composer and pianist based in Pretoria, South Africa. She obtained a Master’s degree in Performing Arts (Western art music) from the University of Pretoria under the direction of Steinway Artists Dr. Charl du Plessis and Dr. Ben Schoeman. She is fluent in various genres of music and improvisation. As a composer she enjoys experimenting and exploring with different sounds. Drawing on her jazz and classical education, she combines acoustic instruments with electronica and analogue synthesizers, resulting in a unique sound.

Mart-Marie has composed and recorded music for numerous performances, short film animations, advertisements, CD’s and podcasts. The animation ‘RUBY AND ROACH’ for which she composed and recorded the soundtrack (in collaboration with violinist Siobhan Lloyd Jones) won numerous awards, and screened at over 52 festivals throughout the world, including Hollywood. Notable films for which she scored music include award-winning animation ‘SCARECROW’ (Ilze Myburgh), ‘INHALE’ (Diek Grobler- nominated for the Weimar Film Poem Prize 2020) and ‘VIR DIE VOËLS’ (Diek Grobler - ATKV Filmverse 2). She is currently working on two new animation short films with Grobler.

During her graduate studies, she was the runner-up in the Lionel Bowman Beethoven Piano Competition and received various bursaries from the Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO), including the prize for the best performance of a South African composition at the UNISA South African Scholarship Competition in 2009.

Mart-Marie has performed at a variety of music festivals and theatres all over South Africa, with well-known singer-songwriter Anna Davel and various ensembles. She made her international debut in Europe in 2016 as an accompanist for Karin Hougaard, performing at the ‘Fees van de Afrikaanse Roman’. In 2017 she was commissioned to perform an original live soundtrack to the 1929 silent film ‘Piccadilly’ at the iMPAC film festival with the experimental group FOXTROT.

Mart-Marie has played and arranged music for many jazz-inspired and French productions, with national and international artists, and has performed as a session pianist on various recordings and productions.

Original compositions, music videos, live performances and animation short films are available for viewing on her YOUTUBE channel. Her 2021 EP “DIGKUNS deur Carina van der Walt” and various singles are available on all music streaming services.

FILM AWARDS

“Ruby&Roach”      

• WINNER Best South African Short Film 2020 (Durban International Film Festival)

• WINNER Best African Short Film 2020 (Durban International Film Festival)

• WINNER Best Children Film (Tbilisi International Animation Festival (TIAF) 2020)

• WINNER Best Music Video/Music Films award (Blu-Hill Film Festival Season 3, 2021)

• WINNER Best Animation Short Film (Onyko Films Awards – May 2021 selection)

• WINNER (Gold medallist) Best Sound Design Category (1st Film Olympiad Grand Prix 2021)

• WINNER (Bronze medallist) Best Animation Category (1st Film Olympiad Grand Prix 2021)

•  WINNER Best Original Score (New York Indie Shorts Awards, April – August 2021 season)

• WINNER Best Animation (Cannes Indie Cinema Awards 4th Edition, 2021)

  
  

  “Scarecrow”

• WINNER Best Animation (Near Nazareth Festival 2021)