ABOUT
Janet Grab is an MPSE Golden Reel-nominated music editor, audio engineer, and classically trained musician. She has served as a juror for Best Sound at the BAFTA Cymru Awards and as a guest lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music.
Ever fascinated exploring the relationship between storytelling, sound, and music, Janet’s experience and versatility led her to work across a broad range of acclaimed audio and audiovisual productions from international feature film blockbusters to independent high-end jazz and classical albums, and everything in-between.
Janet enjoys focussing on creating music and soundscapes that support the longer narrative and establish the tone for increased emotional impact to tell the story effectively.
Drawing on her unique skill set and well-rounded musical and technical background allows Janet to apply a flexible, collaborative, and detail oriented approach and to use her creativity to structure workflows in a way that provides the best technical conditions to help realise the artistic vision.
POST-PRODUCTION
Janet Grab has amassed an impressive list of credits featuring some of the biggest names in film.
She was supervising music editor and score editor on The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (executive produced by Peter Jackson) and music editor on the box office hit musical Wonka (directed by Paul King) for nearly a year and a half throughout all stages of postproduction – which earned her an MPSE Golden Reel nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Music Editing – Feature Motion Picture.
In addition, Janet deepened her knowledge of final dub mixes by working alongside BAFTA and Emmy Award-winning re-recording mixer Howard Bargroff and was invited to serve as a juror for Best Sound at the BAFTA Cymru Awards 2023.
Janet has worked for a range of studios and production companies, including 20th Century Studios, Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Focus Features, Heyday Films, Netflix, Walt Disney Studios, StudioCanal, New Line Cinema, ILM, Cinesite, and Hulu, among others.
Projects span a wide range of genres and musical styles.
In terms of drama, two Downton Abbey films feature the acclaimed, multi-award-winning score by John Lunn, while We Were the Lucky Ones, a television series, is notable for its music by Rachel Portman and Jon Ehrlich – nominated for Best Original Score for Television at the International Film Music Critics Awards. The selection includes spy, crime, and mystery thrillers such as Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag, scored by David Holmes, and Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile, with its Ivor Novello-nominated score by Patrick Doyle. Fantasy is represented by A Boy Called Christmas, whose score by Dario Marianelli was nominated for a Music and Sound Award. The lineup also features animated projects like Ultraman: Rising and the Super Giant Robot Brothers TV series, directed by Academy Award winner Mark Andrews, among others.
Apart from her work in film and TV, Janet has also contributed to games such as Royal Match and Royal Kingdom by Dream Games.
MUSIC PRODUCTION
Janet honed her skills in music production during her time at ECM Records as assistant to producer and multiple Grammy Award and Downbeat Critics Poll winner Manfred Eicher. In addition, she was invited to deliver masterclasses as a guest lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music.
She also worked for Grammy Award-winning recording engineers such as Tony Faulkner, Simon Kiln, and Jonathan Allen for productions ranging from chamber music ensembles to large-scale orchestral and choir setups. Whilst also running sessions with the London Chamber Orchestra on her own, those included recordings for the LSO, Britten Sinfonia, and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields at venues such as Abbey Road Studios, King’s College Chapel Cambridge, Merton College Chapel Oxford, Barbican Concert Hall, Birmingham Symphony Hall, and the Menuhin Hall.
SPATIAL / IMMERSIVE AUDIO PRODUCTION
Fascinated by the effect of spatial/immersive audio on our perception of envelopment, sonic detail, and presence – and combining this with the ever-growing presence of 3D audio formats such as Dolby Atmos, Auro-3D, Sony 360 Reality Audio, and Ambisonics in the commercial fields of game, film, augmented reality (AR) / virtual reality (VR) / mixed reality (MR), audiobooks, podcasts, and music – Janet specialised in the field of spatial audio early on.
Based on her work in the field of immersive audio and psychoacoustics, she was invited as a speaker to international industry events, such as the International Conference on Spatial Audio and the Schoeps MikroForum.
PERFORMANCE
A violinist and violist, trained by former Berlin Philharmonic solo violist Wilfried Strehle at the Berlin University of the Arts, Janet performed under the late Bernhard Haitink, David Zinman, Nello Santi, and Jesus Lopez-Cobos, amongst others, in concert halls including the Berlin Philharmonic, Konzerthaus Berlin, Tonhalle Zurich, the Smetana Hall in Prague, and the Warsaw Philharmonic.
Although Janet has a background as a professional orchestral musician, she always enjoyed engaging with different genres and styles, playing at pop, jazz, and world music concerts, such as the Baloise Session.
She was awarded grants from the Paul Hindemith Foundation (Chamber Music Academy), the International Summer Academy of the Mozarteum Salzburg, the Hillel Foundation, the Bruno Schuler Foundation, and the Erna & Curt Burgauer Foundation.
SERVICES
MUSIC EDITING FOR FEATURE FILMS, TV, AND GAMES
- Spotting
- Temp scoring & score conception
- Conforming (incl. complex cases)
- Pre-record preparation & scoring session attendance
- Music and dub mix preparations & attendance
- OST’s
- Final deliveries / music cue sheets
SCORE EDITING FOR FEATURE FILMS, TV, GAMES,
AND ALBUM RELEASES
- Including, but not limited to, orchestral multitrack scores
- Including high-quality tuning & noise and artefact removal
MUSIC PRODUCTION / AUDIO ENGINEERING
- Session producing, recording, and mixing
- Quality Control
SPATIAL / IMMERSIVE AUDIO PRODUCTION FOR COMMERCIALS, AUDIOBOOKS & PODCASTS, AR / VR / MR APPLICATIONS, MUSIC, GAMES, AND OTHER AUDIOVISUAL MEDIA
- Creating, producing, recording, and mixing content for 3D audio formats, incl. Dolby Atmos, Ambisonics, Auro-3D, Sony 360 Reality Audio, and their binaural renders
SOUND DESIGN & COMPOSITION FOR COMMERCIALS, AUDIOBOOKS & PODCASTS, AR / VR / MR APPLICATIONS, GAMES, AND OTHER AUDIOVISUAL MEDIA
Janet holds the following degrees:
- Music Supervision Certificate from Berklee College of Music with Emmy Award winner Brad Hatfield (summa cum laude)
- BSc (Hons) in Audio Production from the School of Audio Engineering (SAE) London (First-Class Honours)
- MA in Music Performance with Michel Rouilly & Wilfried Strehle
(Zurich University of the Arts / Berlin University of the Arts) - BA in Music with Wendy Enderle-Champney (Zurich University of the Arts)
- Executive Master in Arts Administration (University of Zurich)
- Grammar School at Stiftsschule Einsiedeln
with a major in ancient Greek and Latin
Fluent in English, German, and Italian.