This isn't the biggest feature on the site by far, but it's something I've been meaning to do for a while.   If I mentioned the name Germaine Franco to you, you probably wouldn't immediately know who she was.   It may interest you to know, however that she is John Powell's right hand woman - his assistant.   That doesn't involve getting cups of coffee though...(at least I hope it doesn't!)

Graduating from Rice University in Houston Texas, Germaine Franco holds a Bachelor and Master's Degree in music.   

For a while she lead a Latin-jazz group that performed at the Mexican ''Festival Internacional de la Raza".   Since then, she has played with many world class orchestras and choirs, usually on percussion.   These include The World Orchestra, The Berlin Opera, The Vienna Boys Choir and the Houston Pops Orchestra.

She has taught students herself, working part-time at the Eastern Sierra College Center in California.

Her introduction with Powell was on "The Italian Job", where she performed on percussion.   Her role expanded quickly as she started providing additional programming on scores like "Paycheck", "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" and "Ice Age: The Meltdown".   On "Happy Feet", she co-wrote the "Adelie Bridge/Adelie Rap" along side Powell and Dan Lerner.   She also help translate the Spanish version of "My Way", which was performed by Robin Williams.

More recently, she has moved into the role of score production coordinator.   This mainly involves music preparation, and making sure things run as smoothly as possible during the production and recording of Powell's scores.   She is also responsible for the album mock-ups on more recent projects such as "Jumper", "Horton Hears A Who!" and "Stop Loss".

She still frequently plays percussion on many of Powell's scores, and also played (along with Powell) at the World Soundtrack Awards in Ghent, Belgium in 2006.