COLCHESTER'S very Hollywood film composer is back at the town's arts centre for a night of Horror music.

Jason Frederick is perhaps best known for his Mods and Coppers concerts which have packed out the Church Street venue with their mixing of film music with a big band sound.

Celebrating the very best film and television scores ever written including pieces in Bullitt, dirty Harry and Get Carter, he's about to shine a spotlight on a different musical movie genre, that of the Horror film.

"This is more of a talk and live demonstration for a seated audience rather than a gig," Jason says. "Music in horror films is often overlooked but they consist of some of the most beautiful and iconic soundtracks ever committed to the silver screen.

"I'll be looking at the musical history of classic horror through such films as Dracula, Psycho, The Curse of Frankenstein and Theatre of Blood."

Jason started his musical career as a member of an indie rock band who got signed to a major record label but when they broke up 18 months later he decided to try his hand at television and film composing.

“When I was ten, I remember going to see Goldfinger,” Jason says.

“Hearing that music for the first time was one of those real switch-on moments, so when the band broke up I decided to go into television and film scoring.”

And to do that, Jason headed for the centre of the industry, California – the University of Southern California, to be precise, where he took perhaps the world’s most renowned course on scoring for motion pictures and television.

After graduating, Jason began working with composer Richard Gibbs, who did the music for Dr Doolittle with Eddie Murphy and the Muppets television show, called the Muppets Tonight.

His first writing job was on a film Richard was scoring, called 28 Days, with Sandra Bullock and Dominic West in which Jason did the music for a soap opera which was on in the background of the film.

Now Jason writes music for all kinds of things from documentaries to pieces of music for products like Bombay Sapphire and Skoda.

Jason Frederick's Classic Horror Music Night is at the Colchester Arts Centre on Wednesday, December 14, from 8pm. Tickets are £6 and £5 for concessions, available by calling 01206 500900 or online at www.colchesterartscentre.com