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Photo By: Marcia Charnizon

Juliet Merchant is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning composer and pianist, best known for her scores for Soviet silent films commissioned by Klassiki and the National Cinema Centre of Armenia. Her debut came with Gerry Fox’s documentary Force of Nature: Natalia, which premiered at Curzon Cinemas. She has since written for classics such as The Girl with the Hatbox (Boris Barnet), Love’s Berries (Oleksandr Dovzhenko), and Aelita (Yakov Protozanov), with performances at the Institut Français. Her music was described as “dazzling” by Russian Arts and Culture.

She was commissioned by The Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republic of Armenia to write the score for “The House on the Volcano” by Amo Bek-Nazaryan for the centenary of Armenian cinema, where she directed the Conservatory Orchestra of Armenia. This received an "outstanding" review by Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian and “an absolute triumph” by Fin Logie from Lossi 36 and has been premiered internationally, including at MoMA, La Cinematheque Francaise, Samizdat Eastern European Film Festival, Institut Français, National Centre of Cinema of Armenia, The Arnolfini, and MAO (Modern Art Oxford).

Her recent collaboration with Eunjo Lee’s film trilogy has been exhibited at Frieze London, CCA Goldsmiths, and NeMAF Seoul International ALT Cinema & Media Festival, receiving the Mansfield-Ruddock Art Prize. In 2024, she unveiled a series of collaborative audio-visual works at Somerset House with live musicians.

Juliet completed her Master’s in Composition at the University of Oxford, collaborating with the Castalian Quartet, Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, and BBC choirs, with performances at Christ Church, Jacqueline du Pré, and Holywell Music Hall.

She has received awards from the International Music Festival in Blackheath, Ealing Music Festival, and Vigevano Soundscape Competition. Signed with EMI and Motus Music, she has composed for the BBC, ITV, and Paramount Pictures. Juliet has also been featured by IFMCA and Cinematic Sound Radio alongside Debbie Wiseman and Rachel Portman in discussions on gender inequality and representation in film music.

All films are available to stream on Klassiki and MUBI.

"One of the treats of this film is the outstanding new score from Juliet Merchant, which brings out the film's operatic intensity, and its plaintive beauty." - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

"Merchant’s score cooperates with this cinematography skilfully, incorporating uneasy rumbling tones with darkened shots of unsafe, crumbling machinery. Low bass drones accompany images of grinding machinery, while romantic swells of strings are employed during instances of unity and rebellion. Merchant expertly uses moments of silence to create tension, and removes the continuous beat of the percussion during the film’s pivotal fire, creating an eerie discomfort by focusing attention on the horrific images on screen, without the addition of any flourished theatrical, emotional score, thus plainly laying out Bek-Nazaryan’s vision. Gradually, the music is brought back through moments of high-frequency synth drones which evoke helpless screams.

Merchant’s performance of her score was an absolute triumph, the composer having worked with an Armenian orchestra to incorporate instrumentation from the Caucasus alongside more modern synth sounds. Distorted lofi crackles of bassy synths worked together with the intense quick-cut montage of the film’s climactic sequence. In a short talk following the film’s screening, Merchant informed the audience that her objective in writing the score was to bring a new atmosphere to the film, a task at which she has most definitely succeeded." - Fin Loggie, Lossi 36

"Juliet works in both classical and electronic styles that come together as an eclectic hybrid to create intriguing, powerful music. Her thrilling new score to accompany Aelita brings new life to Protazanov’s futuristic vision." - Russian Arts and Culture, IZBA

“The film is nothing short of a triumph, especially in its 4K restoration, with an accompanying and almost hypnotic score done by Juliet Merchant. Her music enhances the cold and mechanical world of House on the Volcano perfectly.” Cinema as identity, The Glasgow Guardian