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I first heard Blair Mowat's music in connection with Doctor Who. He occasionally assisted Murray Gold with arranging tasks, and ended up scoring spin-off series "Class" in 2016. Since then he has scored numerous television productions including Mark Gatiss' re-imaging of "The Amazing Mr Blunden", off-beat detective series "McDonald & Dodds" and most recently Russell T. Davies' Noele Gordon biopic "Nolly". "Doctor Jekyll" stars Eddie Izzard in the title role. The film was released in late October under the Hammer label, a name synonymous with horror. Mowat reports that the director Joe Stephenson "was looking for a bold, gothic, and dramatic score mixing traditional Hammer tropes with a modern sensibility" and the composer has seemingly taken this direction to the extent that the split personality at the story's core is mirrored by the score being recorded with two different orchestras - the Budapest Art Orchestra and The Royal Scottish National Orchestra. A 30-part choir serves to heighten the gothic feel. I've not seen the film but the score has a nice narrative arc to it, with the opening and closing tracks firmly tongue in cheek, while the central tracks mix elements of suspense with Grand Guignol. You can stream and download Doctor Jekyll via the main streaming services at Doctor Jekyll film score.
The annual World Soundtrack Awards were presented yesterday as part of Film Fest Gent. The photo shows Nicola Piovani (left) and Laurence Rosenthal (right) who both won Lifetime Achievement Awards for their contributions to film music. Nicola Piovani is known for Fellini's "Intervista" (1987) and "La vita è bella" (1997) among many others, and Laurence Rosenthal is known for Arthur Penn's "The Miracle Worker" (1962) and the popular series "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" (1995) among many others. Laurence Rosenthal is approaching his 97th birthday, and his music will feature in an album to be released shortly by the Festival. Other award recipients included Film Composer of the year, Volker Bertelmann for War Sailor, All Quiet on the Western Front & Memory of Water, Television Composer of the Year Nicholas Britell for Andor Season 1 and Succession Season 4, Best Original Song "Your Personal Trash Man Can" from Season 5 of "The Marvelous Mrs Maisel" written by Thomas Mizer and Curtis Moore, Discovery of the Year Simon Franglen (no, I don't understand this either!) for "Avatar: The Way of Water", Game Music Award River Boy (Narayana Johnson) for "Cult of the Lamb", Amelia Warner, Alec Sievern, Dirk Brossé, and Robert Townson. Congratulations to all winners, nominees and participants at the event.
The last time we mentioned Winifred Phillips it was concerning her score for the game Jurassic World: Primal Ops. In complete contrast to that, we introduce her multi-award-winning music for "Horse Club Adventures". This is a series of games on various platforms aimed at a younger audience. It involves adventures, mini-games, missions, tasks and exploration, and the general tone is very much a feel-good one. Phillips' choice of music reflects this and includes plenty of variety in genres, styles and tempo. The main theme recurs at various points to keep things centred. The dominant instrumental sound comes from wooden flutes with guitar and percussion support, but there's also plenty of orchestral backing from the strings. The composer touches on folk sounds, with some jazz and funky moments, and the music occasionally veers off into early music or baroque with hints of oriental sounds. Quite an eclectic mix, but the overall feel is one of mood painting within an idyllic setting, using a light touch and full of fun. Music from the Horse Club Adventures has been released on two "folk" albums here: Winifred Phillips Folk.
It was just this week that I learned of the death of the composer Jim Parker in July at the age of 88. Even if you don't know his name, you will undoubtedly have heard his music, especially if you were watching UK television during the past few decades. His mysterious waltz theme for "The Midsomer Murders" has been a constant on the show for 24 years, and he also composed themes for other long-running series like "Ground Force" and "Changing Rooms". "Soldier Soldier" helped to launch the singing careers of "Robson and Jerome" (Robson Green & Jerome Flynn) when they sang "Unchained Melody" in one episode, and it was then released as a single. For this series Parker created a theme tune based on the old folk song "Soldier, Soldier". Other TV themes by Parker included "Born and Bred", "Foyle's War", "The House of Elliot", "The Booze Cruise" and many more. He studied Oboe at the Guildhall School of Music and played for a time with the City of Birmingham Orchestra. In addition to his television and film work, he also composed for the theatre and delivered a number of commissions from various groups and festivals. When John Betjeman was the Poet Laureate, Parker set several of his poems to music. He won a total of 4 BAFTAs for his television music including "To Play the King" (a sequel to "House of Cards"), "The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders", "The History of Tom Jones" and "A Rather English Marriage".
Scott Slapin and Tanya Solomon are a husband & wife team making up "The Slapin-Solomon Viola Duo". They have been playing together for some time since this album (released earlier in 2023) is "A 20-year Retrospective" looking back over their recordings from two decades. The sound has remained remarkably consistent over that time period, bringing out a rich and mellow sound, both warm and intimate. The only familiar tracks to me are the 1812 Overture and the Ride of the Valkyrie, and it's interesting to hear two violas tackle orchestral music. However the main benefit of such an album is to introduce new repertoire to the listener, and there is considerable variety here demonstrating the versatility of these musicians. There are classical tracks from Bruni and Rolla, a passionate movement from "Double Helix" by Rachel Matthews, through to the relatively modern Sonata for Two Violas by Frank Proto. There are several compositions from Scott Slapin himself and these are both varied and listenable, pleasantly modern without being atonal. The album also features some fun tracks by David Rimelis. All in all this album is a celebration of the Duo itself, the Viola as a chamber instrument and some largely unknown repertoire. The best way to hear the Duo's music is either through their website violaduo.com, or via their Youtube Channel which also features Viola lessons. And if you aspire to play in a Viola Duo yourself, their website has many suitable sheet music links.
"Scrapper" is the directorial debut film of Charlotte Regan, and it has won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize. The film is about a young 12 year old girl called Georgie, who is dealing with the grief of losing her mum. The music score is by Patrick Jonsson, who has consistently scored a wide range of well-regarded scores for films and television series over the last decade or so. In the film Georgie deals with her grief by building a large tower of scrap metal, as a displacement activity and form of self therapy. Early conversations between director and composer agreed that the score should be from Georgie's point of view and include metallic sounds to mirror the scrap metal construction. The result is very acoustic and real-world reflecting the girl's thoughts, dreams, and memories. The metallic sounds are not dry and hard, but strangely warm and homely, including some isolated sounds and rhythmic sequences. This is an interesting score which seems to strongly reflect the subject matter, and very much worth a listen. The score is released today and you can stream it on all music platforms such as this link on Spotify.
We are sad to announce the death of the composer Carl Davis at the age of 86. He was born in the US but moved to the UK in 1961, where he settled in Liverpool and married the actress Jean Boht (best known as the Mum in the comedy series "Bread") who died in 1991. As a composer Davis scored films such as "The French Lieutenant's Woman", "Frankenstein Unbound", "Up Pompei!" (the movie version) and "Anne Frank Remembered" and also UK TV series such as "The World at War", "Cranford", "The Naked Civil Servant", "Pride and Prejudice" and "A Year in Provence". However he was also particularly known for composing scores for older silent movies such as "Napoléon" (1927), "The Thief of Bagdad" (1924) and a number of Buster Keaton classics. In 1991 he worked with Paul McCartney on his concert work called "The Liverpool Oratorio". As a conductor he reconstructed and re-recorded some of Charlie Chaplin's own scores such as "The Gold Rush" and "City Lights", and he frequently conducted concerts with programmes of his own or others music and I attended one such concert in Edinburgh where he introduced and conducted a selection of well-known film music.
Two very different scores by Nainita Desai have been released recently. First is the Game Score for the most recent Call of Duty, "Modern Warfare II, Season 3". The action for this installment is set in Mexico, and the composer uses an electro-acoustic instrument called a "Halldorophone" to give the score its own unique sonic pallet. Each string on the instrument its own dedicated pickup allowing different electronic effects, with sympathetic drone strings providing additional colour and feedback. The Halldorophone provides melodic moments and the score features plenty of ambience with distressed string layers, some interesting evolving ostinatos and organic sounding percussion. Stream this score on Spotify.
Green Space, Dark Skies was an unusual project connecting people across the UK for a celebration of their local National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The project culminated in a "finale" event with an associated film which featured on a special Countryfile episode broadcast in October 2022. Large groups of people formed light patterns (using low impact lights) on the slopes of the 4 highest mountains of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Desai's music for the film is dramatic and emotionally powerful as it underscores moments of reflection, community and epic majesty. It is beautiful and uplifting, with evocative folk strings (played by Matt Kelly) soaring over a lush ambient backdrop of music. Find streaming options for this mini-album at MovieScoreMedia.
The OST for "Assassin" released by Filmtrax Ltd. is now available on Streaming platforms. The movie is sadly Bruce Willis' final role, and also stars Nomzamo Mbatha and Dominic Purcell. It's a sci-fi action thriller, with the central concept of technology allowing agents to carry out covert operations by inhabiting the minds and bodies of others. Willis leads a team to recover some drone tech which has fallen into enemy hands. The film score is by Los Angeles based composer Mark Tewarson, whose palette for this film is based on synth sounds with strings, piano and percussion. Partly sound design, there are plenty of industrial atmospheres with some processed voices adding to the dehumanised feel, with action sequences propelled by percussion at a rapid BPM. There is some some humanity in the form of both solo and section strings and piano, and small snatches of melodic musings provide a small element of hope. Check it out on your favourite Streaming platform.
The Double-Bass is rarely the star in classical music, but Mikyung Sung is set to change that! She is a Korean classical bassist, born into a musical family where she played the instrument from a young age, before giving her professional debut at the age of 12. She has since given recitals, played at festivals, performed with a range of orchestras, and has become something of a social media phenomenon. Her debut album is "The Colburn Sessions", featuring the Double Bass as a solo instrument (with piano accompaniment), and named after the school in Los Angeles where she studied. On 2 discs the album features works by Bottesini, Massenet, Hindemith, Montag, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninov and Franck - some written for the double-bass, some adapted from cello works and some even originally for violin. Indeed in the hands of Mikyung Sung the instrument sounds like a deeper version of a cello, richly lyrical and with a surprising agility. Here is a youtube example of Sung playing the Schubert song "Ständchen" from Schwanengesang, and on her website at mikyungbass.com you will find many more examples and details about the album.
It has long been observed that audiences tend not to like avant garde music, but that it seems to be acceptable in film scores for the horror genre. We expect horror movies to be unsettling and the music is part of that experience and certain avant garde techniques now become appropriate like dissonance, atonalism and "found sounds". Dmitri Golovko's score for "Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism" is certainly a case in point utilising these methods, but it is not an extreme example by any means. The film is an Australian production based on a true story about an overzealous exorcism that goes badly wrong. The film score features some strange bowing sounds and percussive noises plus some weird electronic processing, but much of the score is orchestral and reasonably tonal. In places some tracks even manage to be tender and emotional, and there is a clear sympathy for the woman who is the unfortunate subject of the exorcism. It is certainly a very listenable soundtrack and easy to recommend. The composer Dmitri Golovko is based in Australia, has been contributing to film and television scores for more than a decade and has won several awards for his music. His website is at www.dgmusic.tv, and the film score can be heard on Youtube and other streaming services. The final track on the album is a remix of one of Golovko's score tracks by electronic artist Tobacco Rat.
Music albums are now available for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 coinciding with the cinematic release. There's the expected "Mixtape" soundtrack, though no longer restricted to 80s music as that storyline has moved on. The original score is by the composer John Murphy. Murphy has been creating film scores since the early 1990s but it was his music for "28 Days Later" in 2002 which made people take notice, specifically the track "In The House, In A Heartbeat" with its haunting guitar melody. The track made a welcome return in 2007's sequel "28 Weeks Later" and that year also saw the release of the influential track "Adagio in D minor" for the movie "Sunshine". He went on to score many more movies, most recently "The Suicide Squad" and the GOTG "Holiday Special" short. For GOTG Vol.3 he has put together a rock-metal-electronic-orchestral-choral score with some of his signature guitar sounds, which help to blend with the "mixtape" songs. Some of the tracks sound like huge battle scenes (Warlock vs. Guardians & Guardians vs. Hell Spawn) but then we have the juxtaposition of church-like boy soprano with "elevator music". There is also some classical touches with a hyped up version of Purcell's "Dido's Lament" wringing every last drop of emotion. The excellent score can be played on Youtube and other streaming sites.
Back in the 70s & early-80s Jean-Michel Jarre was the darling of electronic music with albums like Oxygène, Équinoxe, etc. Then he progressed to huge multimedia experiences with lights & fireworks accompanied with music, including locations like the Eiffel Tower and major stadiums across the world. But he never stopped releasing music and "Oxymore" is his latest in a long series of studio albums. The title seems to refer back to "Oxygene" but is a riff on the word Oxymoron. Oxymore is subtitled "Homage to Pierre Henry", Henry being the French pioneer of musique concrète and electronics who left Jarre with a series of sounds (including vocals) for further development, which Jarre duly delivers in this album. The album also makes much use of the latest immersive spacial techniques. If you buy the CD you get a code to download special binaural versions of the tracks, with weird dynamic panning effects when using earphones. Although many artists work in the electronic field these days, Jarre can still deliver the goods. Check it out at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.
As a fan of film music I've often wondered how much influence on his musical career came from his father Maurice Jarre (Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, etc.). The answer may be very little, since his parents split when Jean-Michel was only 5 and his father left to pursue a career in Hollywood. However growing up he had lots of contact with artists of all types, and his mother was also influencial and famous as a leading figure in the French Resistance during WWII who spent almost a year in a concentration camp.
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Gayathri Khemadasa is a Sri Lankan composer and pianist who studied piano at the Prague Conservatory in the Czech Republic. Starting out as a pianist in 2005 she has composed film scores since 2009, and in 2015 she became the first woman in Sri Lanka to win a domestic award for film music despite working in a very male-dominated industry. In 2020 the composer wrote the music for the Sri Lankan film "The Newspaper" which did very well internationally, and in June 2022 she was nominated for and won in the category for Best Music at the Santa Barbara Ceylon Film Festival. The title track from the film is shown alongside. More about the composer and her career can be found at her website: GayathriKhemadasa.com. |
I regret to announce the death of the Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto at the age of 71. Sometimes it seems as though I'm always reporting the passing of composers. In the case of Ryuichi Sakamoto, I first became aware of his music from "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" which starred David Bowie and had Sakamoto himself in the cast, but it's the composer's music which made a lasting impression. He went on score "The Last Emperor", the 1990 film adaptation of "The Handmaid's Tale", "Wuthering Heights", "Little Buddha", "Snake Eyes" and "Silk". More recently he scored "The Revenant" where Leonardo DiCaprio seeks revenge after being left for dead following a bear attack, and The Black Mirror TV Episode "Smithereens" starring Andrew Scott. Beyond his film career he composed albums and singles as solo projects and with numerous collaborators, and went on tour with live shows. His website is at SiteSakamoto.com.
It is with great sadness that I report the death of the composer Christopher Gunning at the age of 78. To many people Gunning was best known as a composer for film and television. In the realm of TV music he is the saxophone sound of Agatha Christie's "Poirot" starring David Suchet, though he also created themes or scores for "Rosemary and Thyme", "Cold Lazarus", "Porterhouse Blue", "Wild Africa", "Rebecca", "Middlemarch" and more. For film he scored the award-winning Edith Piaf biopic "La Vie en Rose", "Hands of the Ripper", "Amin: The Rise and Fall" and the haunting vocal music for "When the Whales Came". Away from his screen music, his main artistic focus was his concert music. In total Gunning composed at least 12 Symphonies recording many of these conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra or the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and his affinity for the saxophone also gave rise to a Saxophone Concerto as well as concertos for many other string and wind instruments. On a more personal note, I never met Christopher but was pleased to call him a friend on social media where he frequently liked and commented on my many photos of the Scottish Highlands.
It is with regret that we report the death of the songwriter Burt Bacharach at the age of 94. Bacharach had a classical musical education but quickly showed a strong interest in and an aptitude for Jazz, Big Band music, and the popular music of the time. He met, accompanied and arranged for numerous singers, and soon formed a non-exclusive songwriter partnership with Hal David. The pair wrote many songs for Dionne Warwick, and Bacharach's career snowballed with further collaborations with leading singers and lyricists. "Magic Moments", "Anyone Who Had a Heart", "Walk on By", "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?", "I'll Never Fall in Love again", "That's what Friends are for", "Always Someone there to Remind me", "I Say a Little Prayer", "What the World Needs Now is Love, Sweet Love" and "Close to You" are just a small sample of his songs. He also wrote songs and themes for (and sometimes scored) films such as "What's New Pussycat", "Casino Royale", "Alfie" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", and he made cameo appearances in all the "Austin Powers" films. His impact on Popular Music is immense.
For her "Moons Symphony", Australian-born composer Amanda Lee Falkenberg has picked seven of the most interesting moons in the Solar System to depict musically. A similar idea to Holst's Planet Suite, but Falkenberg goes for an emotional reaction to each moon's unique science, rather than the Astrological character of Holst's approach. We get a glimpse of some widely varied geology and unimaginable chemistry, culminating in the inspiring yet relatively homely Earthrise from our own Moon. Falkenberg's Symphony is a choral work with lyrics by the composer herself, and it has been recorded by The London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor Marin Alsop, with the London Voices directed by Ben Parry. The result is a wonderfully evocative work that could equally grace concert halls or film scores. The album has some additional content from the composer and it can be found at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. The composer's website is at AmandaLeeFalkenberg.com.
Deutsche Grammophon isn't a label that you immediately associate with film soundtracks, but "Tar" is labelled as a Concept Album with "music from and inspired by" the movie. "Tar" stars Cate Blanchett as a fictional conductor called Lydia Tár, and features a score by composer Hildur Guðnadóttir (Joker, Chernobyl, Arrival). The album features a number of score tracks, with some additional non-score tracks by Gudnadottir specially composed for the album, and inspired by the film. Blanchett immersed herself in music in preparation for the role, learning how to conduct, brushing up her piano skills and learning German. Whether playing or conducting, musical sections of the film were recorded live for maximum authenticity. The album includes film recording sessions of Blanchett conducting rehearsals with the Dresdner Philharmonie in portions of Mahler's 5th Symphony, and similar recording sessions of the Elgar Cello Concerto with Sophie Kauer on Cello. With a couple of additional film-related tracks, the album is certainly a varied and interesting listening experience - check it out on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.
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