Welcome to Jim's Blog:

Keep in touch with what's new on mfiles. Jim's Blog has the latest music news. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook to be notified of news and new content on mfiles, or Subscribe to mfiles feed.

February 1st - The Essential Philip Glass

The Essential Philip Glass - album cover Philip Glass celebrated his 75th birthday yesterday, a composer whose wide-ranging music has had a major impact on musical tastes across many spheres. To mark the occasion Sony have released "The Essential Philip Glass" which looks at his significant contributions to musical theatre, to film and to concert music, while also exploring his collaborations with artists such as the Kronos Quartet and Yo-Yo Ma. The package is listed as being on 3 CDs though the versions currently available are for download only. Try the following links at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com for more information.

January 26th - Sherlock soundtrack album released

Sherlock Series 2 has now been shown, and Series 3 will tell us just how Holmes did it! But the music for the series, created jointly between David Arnold and Michael Price, is a key ingredient in the success of the series. This soundtrack album contains music from the Series 1 which introduced the characters of Sherlock and Watson in the present day world. The album will be available first in the UK from 30th January at this link Amazon.co.uk and in the US from 27th March at this link Amazon.com. Meanwhile the series 6 soundtrack from that other Steven Moffat series Doctor Who comes on 2 CDs at Amazon.co.uk (now) and Amazon.com (from 28th February).

January 25th - Oscars: John Williams now in the Record Books

John Williams - photograph Following the Oscar Nominations announced yesterday, composer John Williams is now in the record books. For many years Fox music supremo Alfred Newman held the record number of music nominations with a total of 45. John Williams had caught up with him in 2005 with nominations for "Memoires of a Geisha" and "Munich", but following his new nominations for The Adventures of Tintin and "War Horse" Williams now holds the record with 47. The only person in any category with more nominations is Walt Disney with 59. By the time of the oscar ceremony on February 26th Williams will have reached his 80th birthday. Previous Music Oscar winners are listed on our Film Music Oscars page.

January 24th - Little Symphony virtual orchestra

Virtual Symphonies and Choirs are a growing phenomena on to the internet. The latest example is the "Little Symphony" where people from all over the world play together without actually meeting. Their first video at the left is a performance of Pachelbel's Canon in D. For other examples try Eric Whitacre's Sleep (a virtual choir project), the Allegro Youth Orchestra playing Handel and Youtube's own annual Symphony Project which combines videos to create virtual orchestras before the best players come together for real.

January 19th - French Impressions with Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk

French Impressions: Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk - CD back cover This intimate yet passionate recording by violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Jeremy Denk focuses on the chamber repertoire of the French Impressionist composers. The works included are Camille Saint-Saëns - Violin Sonata No. 1 in D Minor Op 75 (1885), César Franck - Violin Sonata in A Major (1886), and Maurice Ravel - Violin Sonata in G Major (1927). The two musicians have busy recital schedules in 2012, performing widely across the US and within Europe, and they will come together starting in May for a series of joint concerts. The CD is available from these links at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

January 16th - Music Files to discontinue MP3 Price Comparison

Listening to MP3 Player Today Music Files has announced it will discontinue its MP3 Price Comparison Service. We apologise to any customers who use the facility, but despite our best efforts we have been unable to sustain a service that was sufficiently reliable and commercially viable. The service was launched in late 2009 in partnership with MP3 Puzzled, instantly comparing prices for MP3 downloads across online stores including Amazon, iTunes, Play.com, Tesco, 7Digital and We7. Jim Paterson said "One of my biggest regrets was that the service was restricted to UK online stores, while we would very much have liked to expand into the North American market." The service will be dismantled by the end of the month.

January 13th - RIP composer David Whitaker

The Hammer Film Music Collection Volume 1 - CD cover The composer David Whitaker has died this week. David Whitaker is probably best know for his Hammer film scores "Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde", "Vampire Circus" and "That's Your Funeral" in the early 1970s, though he has created a variety of well-regarded film scores from "Run Wild, Run Free" in the late 1960s through to "The Sword and the Sorcerer" in the 1980s. In 2000 he was nominated for a César (French oscar) for "With a Friend Like Harry..." and in 2002 he released an album "The David Whitaker Songbook" with a mix of his own songs and some arrangements and collaborations. To hear his music try the "Hammer Film Music Collection Vol.1" at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com, or "The David Whitaker Songbook" at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

January 8th - Don Black on John Barry

John Barry - photo Last Monday BBC Radio 2 broadcast a programme called "Beyond Bond" about the composer John Barry, presented by lyricist and frequent collaborator Don Black. There's just 24 hours left to hear the programme on iPlayer - go to this link on the BBC website. The programme is full of musical examples of Barry's work from the theme to "Thunderball" to his oscar-winning music for "Dances with Wolves". Along the way the programme explores Barry's collaborations with singers from Adam Faith and Michael Crawford to Shirley Bassey on those Bond songs, with many personal anecdotes by Black including Tom Jones fainting while recording the Thunderball theme!

December 29th - Treemonisha: a new recording of Scott Joplin's opera

Scott Joplin: Treemonisha by the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra - Box Set cover (2 CDs) Fitting very nicely with our ragtime theme this week, is this new recording of Treemonisha. The opera is a unique picture, both culturally and spiritually, of Black Africans in America in the 19th century. Scott Joplin completed the work in 1911, and invested so much of himself (emotionally and artistically) in its creation. There are very few complete recordings of the opera, but the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra have set out to create a definitive recording using Joplin's original orchestration. The boxset comes on 2 CDs with an illustrated 116-page book. More information and samples at the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra website and the recording is also available at Amazon.co.uk (expected in January 2012) and at Amazon.com.

December 20th - Music by Sangjin Bae

This video showcases the music of Sangjin Bae who is a 17 year old composer from Korea, in a work called "Poem of a Thousand Years". The singing in this music has been created using the SeeU Vocaloid voicebank which uses sampled vocals specialising in Korean and Japanese syllables and intonation. "Poem of a Thousand Years" is based on some Korean folklore where a fox with 9 tails waits for a thousand years to become human, and the music lasts 1000 seconds. More music by Sangjin Bae can be downloaded from our Original MP3 page.

December 15th - Igor Stravinsky conducts The Firebird

Here is Igor Stravinsky himself in a rare video conducting the end of his Firebird Suite at the age of 82. The Russian born composer was most famous for his ballet scores commissioned by Diaghilev: including "The Firebird", "Petrushka" and "The Rite of Spring". The Rite of Spring became instantly famous (or infamous) when its Paris premiere caused a riot, since it was so far removed from the normal expectations of classical ballet. The music was a key milestone for 20th century innovations including complex polyrhythms and polytonality.

December 9th - Jazz on Film Noir: Boxset

Jazz on Film ...Film Noir - Box Set cover (5 CDs) This new boxset fits perfectly into our jazz theme this month - and just in time for Christmas! The remastered boxset has 5 CDs and features the most celebrated jazz film noir scores of the 1950s. There are 7 complete scores in the collection including Duke Ellington's Anatomy of a Murder, Henry Mancini's A Touch of Evil, Alex North's A Streetcar Named Desire, Leith Stevens' Private Hell 36, John Lewis' Odds Against Tomorrow, and Elmer Bernstein's The Man with the Golden Arm and Sweet Smell of Success. The pack comes with a 52 page booklet and is available at Amazon.co.uk and (as an MP3 download) at Amazon.com.

December 6th - An unual version of Brahms' Clarinet Quintet!

We came across this unusual version of the Clarinet Quintet by Johannes Brahms. Accompanied by some hypnotic graphics, Brahms' music has some unusual instrumentation and periodically bursts out into Gypsy style interludes. The music is played by ZRI who are a "new ensemble who are re-imagining classical music for new audiences to fall in love with." On this occasion they "have re-scored the great Brahms Clarinet Quintet to reflect Brahms's passion for the tavern dwelling gypsy musicians." More of their music can be found on the ZRI music website.

More Music News from Jim's Blog posts

For current and recent new items, see Jim's Blog.

For older posts, the archive pages are Jim's Blog 2011, Jim's Blog 2010, and Jim's Blog 2009.

Related Links