Sofia Hultquist, otherwise known as Drum & Lace, is an Italian-born Angeleno, composer, and sustainable fashion advocate. At 18 years old, Hultquist left Italy to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston to study film scoring. She went on to complete graduate studies in 3D Audio, Music Technology, and Electronic Music Composition.
As a female composer, Hultquist is keenly aware of the gender inequality in her industry. “Female composers just aren’t given the budgets that male composers are,” she says matter of factly. Hultquist belongs to the global Alliance for Women Film Composers which, “aims to increase the visibility of women composers active in media scoring.” She’s active and vocal in advocating for equality within her industry, which is nearly half female but deeply male-dominated. Outside of film composition, Hultquist has always written and performed her own work, but a few years ago her personal work became plentiful and prevalent enough to earn its own moniker: Drum & Lace.
As the name implies, Drum & Lace marries Hultquist’s lifelong passions- music and fashion.
She’s continually (and very successfully) merged her two loves over the years by composing for fashion media. Hultquist is also credited with co-scoring the 2015 Met Gala documentary The First Monday in May with her husband, Ian Hultquist. The couple also co-scored an upcoming documentary about the conservation of Asian elephants titled Love and Bananas, due out in 2017, and a docs-series about sustainable fashion sponsored by the Ethical Fashion Initiative.
Eventually, she says, the goal is to have an even balance between film composition and the more experimental, artistic trajectory of Drum & Lace. She imagines the project as a more interactive experience that may be viewed in a gallery as opposed to a music venue. In the mean time, you can get a taste of Drum & Lace via her website, http://www.drumandlacemusic.com .
