Owen Pallett
Michael James Owen Pallett-Plowright[1] (born September 7, 1979), known professionally as Owen Pallett, is a Canadian composer, violinist, keyboardist, and vocalist. Under their former pseudonym Final Fantasy, Pallett won the 2006 Polaris Music Prize for the album He Poos Clouds. Pallett is also known for their contributions to Arcade Fire, having toured with the band and been credited as an arranger and instrumentalist on each of their studio albums. In January 2014, Pallett and Arcade Fire member William Butler were nominated for Best Original Score at the 86th Academy Awards for their original score of the film Her (2013).
Owen Pallett
Michael James Owen Pallett-Plowright
September 7, 1979
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
- Indie pop
- classical
- baroque pop
- art rock
- electronic music
- Musician
- composer
- arranger
- Violin
- viola
- vocals
- piano
- keyboards
- guitar
- bass
From the age of 3, Pallett studied classical violin, and composed their first piece at age 13. A notable early composition includes some of the music for the game Traffic Department 2192; Pallett moved on to scoring films, to composing two operas while in university. Apart from the indie music scene, Pallett has had commissions from the Barbican, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Ballet of Canada, Bang on a Can, Ecstatic Music Festival, the Vancouver CBC Orchestra, and Fine Young Classicals. They have been noted for their live performances, wherein Pallett plays the violin into a loop pedal; Pallett uses Max/MSP and SooperLooper to do multi-phonic looping, which sends their violin signal to amplifiers across the stage.
Aside from their solo oeuvre and work with Arcade Fire, Pallett has contributed arrangements and instrumentation to the works of pop acts like Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys, Robbie Williams, Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran, as well as rock performers such as R.E.M., Linkin Park, Franz Ferdinand, the National and Alex Turner.
Career[edit]
Solo work[edit]
Pallett has drawn inspiration from electronic act Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD),[2][3] who were Pallett's favorite band, along with Eurythmics.[4] They have also identified albums by Tori Amos, The Strokes, Public Enemy and Brian Eno as influential.[3] Pallett's favorite album is Xiu Xiu's A Promise.[5] The name Final Fantasy, under which Pallett recorded prior to the release of Heartland, was a tribute to the well-known video game series, although Pallett said that it is not one of their top twenty favorite games.[6]
Personal life[edit]
Pallett was born in Mississauga, Ontario and grew up in Milton.[29] Pallett received an Honours Bachelor of Music for Composition from the University of Toronto in 2002.[30] Pallett is gay, identifies as gender-queer, and uses gender-neutral pronouns.[31][32]