Welcome to Jim's Blog:

Keep in touch with what's new on mfiles. Visit this Blog to find out the latest music news and new content added to mfiles. Follow us on Twitter at Jimatmfiles to get notified immediately.

September 1st - Glasgow Concert - The Door in the Cupboard

See "The Door in the Cupboard" on Saturday 4th September at 7:30pm. The concert is in the CCA Glasgow and tickets are only £5 and £3. The Glasgow New Music Expedition will be performing new works by Alexander Horowitz, Christopher Duncan, Brendan Toal, Blair Russell and Richard Greer. To book phone the box office at 0141 332 7521 or contact glasgownewmusicexpedition@hotmail.co.uk for further information.

August 12th - Mi Alma Mexicana - My Mexican Soul

2010 is Mexico's bicentennial year with the anniversary being celebrated on September 15th. There will be numerous events to celebrate the occasion, but this musical release caught our attention. Mi Alma Mexicana (or "My Mexican Soul") is a double album of music by Mexican composers which has just been released. It features conductor Alondra de la Parra with the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas, and the music is colourful and vibrant, showing Mexico's rich heritage of musical influences. The double album is highly recommended and previews and further information can be found at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

August 4th - Concert for Care - David Arnold

Composer David Arnold is a passionate supporter of the charity "Care International". As part of this year's fund raising activity he is organising a fantastic film music concert. The concert will take place in the Royal Albert Hall on Monday 18th October, and features an amazing line-up of film composers. Composers so far confirmed include David Arnold, Craig Armstrong, Harry Gregson-Williams, Anne Dudley, John Powell, Patrick Doyle, Dario Marianelli, Rachel Portman, George Fenton, John Ottman, Christopher Gunning and Michael Nyman. Jimmy Carr will also be there - tickets and more details at www.ConcertforCare.com.

July 30th - Looking forward to Tron Legacy

The eagerly awaited sequel to "Tron" is due for release this Christmas. The original film used ground-breaking effects in 1982, and "Tron Legacy" (see official site) aims to maintain that reputation with 3D graphics surpassing Avatar in complexity. The music of the original "Tron" was created by one of the world's great synth composers Wendy Carlos, but this time around the music will be created by the French electronics duo "Daft Punk". The duo started work on the music during the film's early development, have worked closely throughout production and even have cameos as "MP3s".

July 22nd - Doctor Who returns to the Proms

The last Doctor Who Prom Concert was in 2008, and two years later the show has completely changed. There's a new Doctor, new companions, a new writer and new production staff. Back in 2008 David Tennant appeared on screen with a mini-episode, but the new doctor Matt Smith will be host the show with Garen Gillan who plays Amy Pond. Murray Gold is still the show's composer but the music has changed to match the new team, so expect a lot of new Doctor Who music! As before there will be some classical music including John Adams' "Ride in a Fast Machine", Mars from Holst's "Planets Suite", "O Fortuna" from Orff's "Carmina Burana" and Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries". It's an excellent ways to introduce young fans to music and orchestras along with spectacle and monsters. The shows are on 24th/25th July but sold out hours after they went on sale. Fortunately you can catch the show on audio on BBC Radio 3 on Saturday 24th at 7:30pm, on BBC iPlayer for 7 days after that, and due to be broadcast on TV (on BBC 3) some time in August.

July 19th - Andy Ralls Musical Director for UK Tour of Glee

Many congratulations to Andy Ralls on landing the role of Musical Director for the new UK Tour of Glee, the hit show based on the popular TV Series. In addition to his work on a variety of UK musical productions, Andy has created sheet music for mfiles in the form of classical transcriptions and arrangements. See his website at www.AndyRalls.com.

July 13th - Tomas Dvorak's music for Machinarium

The game "Machinarium" has won recognition for its visuals - something resembling a gritty version of "Wall-E" or "9". The music for this Czech production was created by Tomas Dvorak, and it is an electronic ambient sound with industrial and cute robotic noises layered with acoustic instruments. It is very different from the average game soundtrack, but its lightness and subtlety perfectly complement the graphics and gameplay to create a unique sound world. To hear for yourself, download the Free Bonus EP. The composer's website is at floex.cz where there is a link to the full soundtrack. The game website with free demo is at machinarium.com.

July 2nd - Alex North's Spartacus - a spectacular special release

The record label Varese Sarabande is planning to issue a limited-edition bumper pack dedicated to Alex North's score for "Spartacus". The package includes 6 CDs, a DVD and a 168-page book! This is producer Robert Townson's 1000th release for the label, and he says that disc 1 will contain the full 70 minutes of recorded stereo soundtrack, 2 more discs will contain the full score (that's 2 hours 20 minutes) in mono, a further disc will contain unused and alternate cues from the film, and the final 2 CDs will feature 22 different versions of the Spartacus Love Theme. Some versions date from the 60s such as pianist Bill Evans' jazz version from 1963 but other remixes have been newly arranged and recorded by various composers. The DVD is a 96-minute documentary about North and his music including interviews with John Williams, David Newman, Alexandre Desplat, Mark Isham, Lalo Schifrin, Christopher Young, Mark Isham and Robert Townson talking about North and his place in film music history.

June 29th - Craig Lyons - Across the Universe

The Internet Revolution continues to change the way musicians connect with their fans. Craig Lyons has been promoting his work in the virtual world of Second Life, and in the real world has released this video playing John Lennon's Across the Universe using the imagery of virtual worlds and avatars. A great video and a great version of this song.

June 25th - Malcolm Arnold Festival

The Malcolm Arnold Festival has become an annual event in Northampton, and this year the Festival will be launched by the actress Hayley Mills, who was the young star of the film "Whistle Down the Wind" with memorable music by Malcolm Arnold. This year the festival will take place oever the weekend of 16th and 17th October. More information can be found at the Festival Website.

June 21st - Rodrigo y Gabriela - guitar duo

Rodrigo y Gabriela are a fantastic pair of instrumentalists whose guitar-playing perfectly complements each other. If you've not come across this act before, check out some videos here on YouTube or on their own website at www.rodgab.com. They will be touring throughout Europe this summer with a number of confirmed dates in the UK including Glastonbury on 27th June and "T in the Park" on July 10th. Their web-site lists other confirmed venues for their live performances.

June 17th - Clint Mansell official website

Check out the short animated film on the composer's newly launched website at www.ClintMansell.com with music from "The Fountain". Clint Mansell expects to post more videos in future.

June 16th - Aphrodite's Child, Vangelis and Roussos

Fans of Aphrodite's Child will be pleased to know that two of the group's albums are due to be released on CD for the first time in the UK. Esoteric Recordings will release "It's Five O'Clock" and "End of the World" on June 28th. The prog rock group consisted of Vangelis, singer Demis Roussos, Loukas Sideras on drums and Anargyros Koulouris on guitar, and released three albums (the 3rd being "666" based on the Book of Revelations) before splitting up in the early 70s to pursue solo careers. However the band members occasionally worked together after that, with Demis Roussos contributing vocals on Vangelis' famous soundtrack for Blade Runner. To whet your appetite here is the group's first hit single Rain and Tears based on Pachelbel's Canon.

June 10th - Trondheim Solistene - In Folk Style

"In Folk Style" is another superb release from 2L this time featuring the Norwegian String Group Trondheim Solistene ("Trondheim Soloists" whose website is at www.trondheimsolistene.no). The unifying theme on the album is the Folk Music of Norway and it starts in familiar territory with Grieg's Holberg Suite and Two Norwegian Melodies. The 2nd half of the album contains contemporary folk music by Emilia Amper and Gjermund Larsen, and it is truly a delight to hear. The folk music is unique and enegetic showing a kinship with the traditional music of other countries in Northern Europe and fits very well alongside Grieg's folk-inspired music. The clarity of the playing and recording is superb as we have come to expect from 2L.

Listen to this sample track on YouTube and all tracks can be pre-viewed from the mp3 albums at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. For the best listening experience the Blu-ray version will be released on 29th June and can be pre-ordered at these links: Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

June 3rd - The Karate Kid by James Horner

Many people will fondly remember the original "Karate Kid" scored by Bill Conti. The remake starring Jackie Chan seems to have a very promising score by James Horner judging by this Suite from the Soundtrack on YouTube.

May 18th - The Edinburgh Symphony by Julius Röntgen

The long-lost score of Julius Röntgen's "Edinburgh Symphony" has been found. The Dutch-German composer Julius Röntgen (1855-1932) presented this to the University of Edinburgh when receiving an honorary doctorate there. The composer was a good friend of Brahms, an associate of Grieg and had played for Liszt as a boy. He wrote many symphonies and concerti, and "The Edinburgh Symphony" and his doctorate resulted from a friendship with Sir Donald Francis Tovey who was an influencial Professor of Music at the University. Professor Tovey conducted the symphony's premier in 1930 and it has not been performed since, due to the score and parts being mislaid. It is hoped that the symphony will be performed again in Edinburgh. There is a website (in Dutch) about the composer at www.juliusrontgen.nl and this news item on the Edinburgh University site has three short piano extracts from the symphony.

May 14th - Revolution by John Corigliano

The film scores of John Corigliano most definitely stand out from the crowd. He is a classically trained composer, and more accustomed to writing Symphonies, Concertos and other works for the concert hall than film scores. However those few film scores which he has created are absolutely unique and well-worth listening to. His scores for "Altered States" and the oscar-winning "The Red Violin" have been available for some time, but the music for the 1985 film "Revolution" had been overlooked until its recent release earlier this year. The score calls upon a wide range of stylistic technique and features the virtuoso flautist James Galway, who had previously premiered the composer's Flute Concerto known as the "Pied Piper Fantasy".

May 11th - The Swingle Singers anticipate Jem and Glee

I came across the Swingle Singers' interpretation of Bach's Prelude No.12 from Book 2 which follows Bach's sheet music very closely. Many years later, this prelude also became the inspiration for Jem's song "They" and it is being used now on Glee.

April 30th - A Single Man by Abel Korzeniowski

I've been listening to Abel Korzeniowski's soundtrack for the film "A Single Man" which well-deserved its Golden Globe nomination earlier this year. It has some very nice string writing and reminded me of Clint Mansell in places. The soundtrack has some additional music by Shigeru Umebayashi who also arranges 2 tracks by Bernard Herrmann - one of these being a Variation on "Scotty Tails Madeleine" from the film Vertigo.

April 29th - John Powell now added to mfiles

We have now added John Powell to our growing list of film composers on mfiles. We hope to have a review of one of his film scores soon, so watch this space...

April 25th - Mike Post now added to mfiles

We have now added Mike Post to the composers section of mfiles. He was recently seen lending his support to calls for unionisation of composers in the US.

April 19th - Richard Greer and the Craig Armstrong Competition

Many congratulations to my friend Richard Greer - joint winner of the first Craig Armstrong competition. Works by Richard and the other finalists will be performed during the final concert of the Plug Festival at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama on Friday 30th April. More details of the concert can be found here and more of Richard's music can be heard at his page on MySpace. The Competition is named after the composer Craig Armstrong who comes from Glasgow.

April 15th - Dave Grusin's score for The Goonies - released at last!

Dave Grusin's film scores are known for their relaxed jazz influences, so his score for "The Goonies" is unusual. The story about kids having an adventure with pirate treasure became a cult in children of a certain age (now very much grown up). The music score also developed a strong following with its infectious excitement based on the Swashbuckling film scores from the Golden Age of film music, yet updated for the 80s with electric guitars. The film score's fans launched a campaign for a CD release of the film's music and now that campaign has been answered by the Varese-Sarabande label. The CD release seems to be timed for the film's 25th anniversary and Dave Grusin's 75th birthday, and it is available from Amazon.com.

April 12th - Ennio Morricone

Back from London today after a wonderful Morricone concert at the Albert Hall on Saturday evening, and just in time before they closed the Scottish airports! A write-up of the concert has now been published, and it was great to see the Maestro and hear his music played live.

April 9th - the mfiles Bach catalogue

The improvements to the mfiles classical music section are making progress. Now all our Bach works have been completed - including improvements to the sheet music for both printing and playback. The midi files will also play back a little better, but arguably the biggest change is to the mp3 files which have been re-recorded. The Bach keyboard works have been created using the virtual pianos from East-West Quantum Leap. Check out the changes in the "Bach" and "Bach Family" sections on the Classical Sheet Music, Classical Midi and Classical Mp3 pages.

April 3rd - Iron Man 2 by John Debney

The main post-production work on "Iron Man 2" seems to be finished now, ready for its theatrical release next month. You can hear examples from John Debney's action score on the official website at ironmanmovie.marvel.com. There is the possibility that the soundtrack will be released as a double album, but if that falls through you can still look forward to the "Sin City" sequels.

April 2nd - Erik Satie website

It seems to have been around for a long time, but I've only just discovered an interesting Erik Satie website. Though hosted on a Swedish University site, it is in English and has a large collection of reference material - including copies of original Satie manuscripts with the cooperation of the Satie museum in Paris (Archives de la Fondation Erik Satie). This link has also been added to our own Erik Satie page.

We have also added some interesting material to our Ilaiyaraaja page to include YouTube links related to the song "Enna Satham" from the movie "Punnagai mannan" (1986).

March 30th - Johnny Mercer - the Dream's on Me

On Easter Sunday (April 4th) BBC4 are showing a documentary film about Johnny Mercer, one of America's most prolific lyricists, famous for songs such as "Moon River" co-written with Henry Mancini. The film was broadcast in the US last year, but has been extended with additional interview footage for the UK transmission. The documentary is produced by Clint Eastwood (no stranger to song-writing himself having written for some of his most recent films). A tie-in CD has also been released called "Clint Eastwood Presents: Johnny Mercer - The Dream's On Me" which is available from Amazon.co.uk.

March 25th - Joe Hisaishi

I've been listening to Joe Hisaishi's score for "Spirited Away" today. The composer has a wide range of influences but is always entertaining. There are quite a lot of videos on YouTube with him conducting or playing the piano, and here's a great example of him playing Summer from the film "Kikujiro no natsu". Did you know that he chose his stage name based on the Japanese way of writing Quincy Jones?

March 22nd - BAFTA Video Games Awards

The BAFTA video game awards were held on Friday evening, and in the "original score" category the winner was "Uncharted 2: Among Thieves". The full set of nominations were:

• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (winner) - by Greg Edmonson, Clint Bajakian and Jonathan Mayer
• Assassin's Creed II - by Jesper Kyd
• Batman: Arkham Asylum - by Ron Fish and Nick Arundel
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - by Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - by James Hannigan
• PixelJunk Shooter - by Dom Beken and Alex Paterson

March 19th - Alice in Wonderland by Danny Elfman

I'm really enjoying Danny Elfman's Alice in Wonderland at the moment. On the CD version it must surely rank alongside Edward Scissorhands, Batman and Nightmare Before Christmas, though though the "Alice" theme with boys choir lyrics only made it on to the end titles of the film. On another topic I came across a link to a video - a young Korean girl with only 4 fingers between her two hands whose skills at the piano put many of us to shame - inspiring.

March 16th - Aram Khachaturian biography

One of our contributors on mfiles Artur Akshelyan comes from Armenia, and he has drawn our attention to a fascinating biography of the Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978) on youtube. Like Shostakovich and other composers, Khachaturian composed under the oppressive soviet regime. Yet he composed some memorable music including symphonies, concerti and his popular ballets Gayane (with the energetic Sabre Dance and the slow Adagio used in the movie 2001) and Spartacus (used in The Onedin Line). There is also an online museum to the composer at www.khachaturian.am.

March 11th - Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies

Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Love Never Dies" has opened in London. The sequel to "Phantom of the Opera", the new musical is set 10 years later, with all the main characters now relocated to New York's Coney Island. As you might expect: there are issues to be sorted, revelations to be revealed, and tragedy to unfold amid much emotional turbulance. Apart from a couple of brief references to the original "Phantom", the music for "Love Never Dies" is all new and sees Andrew Lloyd Webber on top form. Details of the soundtrack albums are given in our updated Andrew Lloyd Webber profile.

March 5th - The Wizard's Apprentice

Here's a free web game called The Wizard's Apprentice which uses some classical midi tracks, used with permission from mfiles. The game needs a plug-in from YoYo Games which is easy to install, and then you use the cursor keys and the spacebar to select menu items and play the game. The YoYo Games website has many more free games to browse and play - just don't get addicted!

March 1st - Chopin Bicentennial

This year marks 200 years since the birth of Frederic Chopin in 1810. A number of events are planned in celebration of the composer's work, in Poland the country of his birth and around the world. One unusual Chopin project is that an animated film is in production called "Project Chopin: The Flying Machine". The film's soundtrack consists of the composer's Etudes and the pianist Lang Lang is involved both on the screen and behind the scenes. Here is the IMDB page for the film. Click the image to enlarge.

February 26th - The new improved Toccata and Fugue in Dm

The 10th birthday of mfiles is this year! Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor was one of our earliest sheet music publications. Using the new features now available in Sibelius 6, we can control playback of the Toccata's inverted mordents and arpeggios. For those of a technical nature, I exported 3 tracks of midi output from Sibelius into FL Studio, where one or two note lengths were tweaked before using the Garritan Personal Orchestra 4 organ sounds to render a WAV file (32-bit floating point). Wavelab 6 was then used to apply reverb (using Altiverb 6 with the "St Joseph Church" preset) and then export an mp3 file at 128 kbps. Quite a long process but I'm sure you'll agree that the quality is much improved.

February 23rd - Music for the BBC Winter Olympics trailer

I keep hearing this dramatic yet familiar music as the BBC promotes its Winter Olympics coverage with a black and white animation. A few searches on youtube have solved the music question. Here is the longer version of the BBC trailer and here is Michael Buble singing Cry Me A River. Talking about the impact of adverts and their music, this advert from a Seat Belt Campaign is so powerful it will give you goosebumps.

February 19th - Ennio Morricone in London this April

I won't be able to attend the BBC Big Band's A Night at the Movies at London's Cadogan Hall, but I will be seeing Ennio Morricone at the Royal Albert Hall on April 10th, and I'm very much looking forward to that! I've not seen the programme but let's hope we have Ecstasy of Gold from "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly"!

February 17th - Johnny Dankworth (1927-2010)

The composer and jazz musician Sir John Dankworth died earlier this month at the age of 82. He played saxophone and clarinet with many of the great jazz musicians and singers, formed a number of jazz groups or bands, and composed music for several films and television programmes. He was married to singer Dame Cleo Lane for 50+ years, and the pair collaborated frequently on shows, appearances, recordings and other music projects. Here is a video of a televised jazz performance and here he accompanies Cleo Laine singing Oh Lady be Good.

February 15th - Art inspired by Music

The artist Scott von Holzen www.scottvonholzen.com has created a series of pictures inspired by music and musical notation. One of his recent creations used our arrangement of Pachelbel's Canon in D as a basis and the resulting artwork is shown alongside - click to enlarge.

February 12th - Animation Music by Jim Paterson

I did some music recently for a short corporate animation, and here it is on YouTube.

February 11th - Remembering Jerry Goldsmith

It was Jerry Goldsmith's birthday this week - he would have been 81. Here is a YouTube report of him winning his Oscar for "The Omen".

On a lighter note, listen to this 6-year old pianist.

February 4th - More Software Problems

Here's some tips which I discovered today:

• Uploading to YouTube - when my upload kept failing I initially blamed my Broadband connection, but when I swtiched off the progress bar on the YouTube upload screen it worked perfectly.
• Viewing Scorch Scores - I was having periodic problems in Firefox and today even in IE. Installing the latest versions of the Scorch Plug-In fixed this - note the browsers use different plug-in formats.

February 3rd - Award Nominations

Following on from the BAFTA announcement, the Oscar nominations have also been confirmed so we can now compare the full set of nominations for this year's major Film Music Awards.

February 1st - Video Editing Software

I've not posted any YouTube videos for a while (or the corresponding sheet music). I got a new PC and it takes some time to fully configure a new PC, install and register software, and copy folders across. The software installation and registration went well apart from the Video Editing Software from AVS4You. They simply didn't respond to registration emails. In desperation I googled the company and found out that the "lifetime" software they provide is only valid for the lifetime of your PC, but who reads license agreements in detail or expects to find such a clause buried in there? I have therefore decided to buy alternative software from a company with a better reputation (called "Power Director 8 Deluxe") - but I am posting this as a warning to anyone who might be considering AVS4You as an option.

January 30th - Jamie Cullum and the exploding piano

If you think of a grand piano as a work of art or a delicate instrument, then you might not want to view this, but an exploding piano stunt was put together for Jamie Cullum's video "Please Don't Stop The Music". Listen to this (and watch) on Jamie's YouTube Channel and find more info on his website at JamieCullum.com.

January 21st - Stars for Film Composers on Hollywood Boulevard

Among a host of stars from the world of entertainment, film composers Alan Menken and Randy Newman will receive "Stars" on Hollywood Boulevard in 2010. Newman is also well-known as a Song-Writer and a new musical is due to premiere in November 2010 based on his songs. The musical is called "Harps and Angels" after his latest album. To celebrate these events songwriter Gory Bateson sings this song on youtube: What If Randy Newman Stopped Writing Songs?.

January 21st - Golden Globes and Baftas

It's a big week for Awards - Michael Giacchino won the Golden Globe for the Best Music Score category, and the Bafta nominations have now been announced. We need to wait until 2nd February for the Oscar nominations - so watch this space for updates!

January 15th - Harold Faltermeyer (Axelf theme) is Back!

Apart from reuse of his songs, Harold Faltermeyer has been all but absent from film music for the past 20 years, until Kevin Smith persuaded him to score his new film "Cop Out" due for release in February in the US. The official trailer for the movie (starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan) can be seen here on IMDB and says "music by Harold Faltermeyer" among the credits.

January 12th - Field of Dreams by James Horner

Strangely we have not until now published any reviews for any James Horner soundtracks, and he is much in the news at the moment because of his work on the stunning "Avatar". It is good to put that right with a review for his 1989 score Field of Dreams and here is a suite of music from the film on YouTube.

January 7th - The Music of Video Games

The music of video games has always had a great impact on players, and we've always wanted to acknowledge games music and the composers who create it on mfiles. People can be even more passionate about games music than about film music - perhaps it's because you might hear the same music 100s of times. This also makes demands on the composer, who must create music which sets the right atmosphere without becoming tiring on the ear. So our first major article of 2010 is about the music of video games, and called appropriately enough 2010: A Video Game Odyssey.

Music News and Jim's Blog posts from 2009

Older posts can be found on the Jim's Blog Archive.