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Topic: NEW MOVIEmusic pages
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THE PAINTED VEIL SOUNDTRACK ORIGINAL SCORE
Topic: Alexandre Desplat

Topic: Tom Tykwer

PERFUME:  THE STORY OF A MURDERER
CONSUMER INFORMATION:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000K2UG7K/ncdn

ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK FROM EMI CLASSICS, AVAILABLE IN U.S. ON TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, FEATURES SEDUCTIVE PERFORMANCES BY SIR SIMON RATTLE AND BERLIN PHILHARMONIC

BASED ON ENORMOUSLY POPULAR BOOK, FILM VERSION IS ALREADY HUGE HIT IN EUROPE AND SLATED FOR U.S. RELEASE ON DECEMBER 27

DreamWorks Pictures has partnered with Germany's Constantin Film to acquire the U.S. distribution rights to the new thriller Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, based on the bestselling novel by Patrick Süskind.  Slated for U.S. release on December 27, the 65-million-dollar budget film is the biggest English language movie ever produced in Germany. The film stars Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman, and Corinna Harfouch, and is directed by Tom Tykwer.  EMI Classics will release the film's soundtrack, featuring richly atmospheric performances by Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, on Tuesday, December 5, 2006.

Patrick Süskind's novel was released in 1985 and has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, making it, among other things, the biggest selling novel in post-war Germany. Süskind waited for nearly two decades to sell the film rights, as he believed that only two potential directors could do justice to the story.  Neither of those directors could be signed on, but Süskind eventually came together with director Tom Tykwer of Run Lola Run fame.  The two men are credited, along with Süskind's producer friend Bernd Eichinger, with writing the film's script.

The multi-talented Tykwer, along with long-time colleagues Reinhold Heil (ex founding member of Nina Hagen's band) and Johnny Klimek (The Other Ones), also composed the score and based the entire pace of the film on the music. As there is no way to convey smell in the medium of film, Tykwer replaced this sense with music, evoking the moods and sensations that are created by the smells, making the music the key element of the movie.

Intent on providing the best musical support, Tykwer turned to Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic to record the soundtrack. It is highly unusual that the Berlin Philharmonic, one of the world's most acclaimed orchestras, to record an original film score. Simon Rattle conducted Patrick Doyle's rousing score for Henry V with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in 1989.

Set in 18th-century France, the terrifying story of murder and obsession centers around a man who, strangely lacking any scent of his own, has a unique talent for identifying smells, which he uses to create the world's finest perfumes. His gift leads to obsession when he turns to murdering young women on the verge of womanhood in order to capture their aroma.

A fascinating story about the genesis of the film appeared under the headline "Capturing a Whiff of a Repellant Hero" in the Sunday, November 26 edition of the New York Times.

Topic: James Horner

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within"
 - W. Durant
CUNSUMER INFORMATION: 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000K7UH3S/ncdn

From Academy Award® winning filmmaker Mel Gibson (The Passion of the Christ, Braveheart), comes APOCALYPTO: a heart stopping mythic action-adventure set against the turbulent end times of the once great Mayan civilization. When his idyllic existence is brutally disrupted by a violent invading force, a man is taken on a perilous journey to a world ruled by fear and oppression where a harrowing end awaits him. Through a twist of fate and spurred by the power of his love for his woman and his family he will make a desperate break to return home and to ultimately save his way of life.

The soundtrack recording, on Hollywood Records, features score by Academy Award® winning composer James Horner (Titanic, All The King's Men) and features vocals by Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Having reached audiences numbering in the millions with his symphonic film scores, Los Angeles-born James Horner began writing for films in 1980, shortly after completing his doctorate in composition at UCLA, following earlier study at London's Royal Academy of Music and University of Southern California. Horner's first assignment was the scoring of a short film entitled The Drought for the American Film Institute. He further developed his craft in the commercial arena at New World Pictures, under the aegis of low-budget producer Roger Corman. At New World Pictures he also forged important long-term relationships with two emerging young directors, Ron Howard and James Cameron.

Horner's contrasting scores for Brainstorm and 48 Hrs. (for which he earned a Los Angeles Film Critics Association award) helped establish him as an important and versatile new film composer.  Horner went on to write scores for such films as Casper, Clear and Present Danger, The Man Without a Face, Patriot Games, The Perfect Storm, Cocoon and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  James Horner became a household name with the score for Titanic, earning Oscars for Best Score and Best Song and is the biggest-selling film score in history, having sold over 28 million copies worldwide.

Qawwali singer Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan provided vocal solos for APOCALYPTO.  He is the nephew of the famed Qawwali singer, the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and son of Farroukh Fateh Ali Khan.  Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn selected his nephew at birth to tutor in Qawwali music, a form of Islamic devotional music native to Pakistan and India.   And after Nusrat's death, Rahat took over as the lead of his uncle's group.  He has released a CD in the United States and has sung with Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.

HOME OF THE BRAVE SOUNTRACK FEATURES NEW SHERYL CROW SONG AND SCORE BY STEPHEN ENDELMAN
CONSUMER INFORMATION:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000JJRX84/ncdn

(November 28, 2006- Los Angeles, CA) - Lakeshore Records released the Home of the Brave original soundtrack on November 21, 2006.  The soundtrack contains the new song "Try Not to Remember" by Sheryl Crow and score by composer Stephen Endelman (Bride of the Wind, Flirting With Disaster).

Topic: Ennio Morricone
"Ennio Morricone to Receive
Honorary Academy Award®
Beverly Hills, CA — Composer-conductor Ennio Morricone, who has
composed more than 300 motion picture scores over a 45-year career,
has been voted an Honorary Award by the Board of Governors of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The Award, an Oscar® statuette, will be given to Morricone at the
79th Academy Awards® presentation on February 25, 2007, "for his
magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music."

Morricone has earned five Academy Award nominations for original
score — for "Days of Heaven" (1978), "The Mission" (1986), "The
Untouchables" (1987), "Bugsy" (1991) and "Malèna" (2000) — but has
not previously received an Oscar.

"The board was responding not just to the remarkable number of scores
that Mr. Morricone has produced," said Academy President Sid
Ganis, "but to the fact that so many of them are beloved and popular
masterpieces. "

While the bulk of his work has been on Italian films, including "The
Good, the Bad and the Ugly," "Once upon a Time in America"
and "Cinema Paradiso," Morricone has composed memorable scores for
such international titles as "Bulworth," "In the Line of Fire," "La
Cage aux Folles" and "Two Mules for Sister Sara." His current
project, "Leningrad," has been announced for a 2008 release.

Born in Rome, Morricone was hired in 1964 by Sergio Leone and began a
long collaboration with the director on what came to be known
as "spaghetti westerns," though his career has spanned most film
genres from comedy to romance to horror.

Morricone's Honorary Oscar will be presented, along with other
Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2006, on Sunday,
February 25, 2007 at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland
Center®. The Oscars® will be televised live by the ABC Television
Network beginning at 5 p.m. PST (8 p.m. EST), with a half-hour red
carpet arrivals segment, "The Road to the Oscars."

# # #
©A.M.P.A.S.®
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
8949 Wilshire Boulevard Beverly Hills, CA 90211-1972
(310) 247-3000
www.oscars.org
publicity@oscars. org

Topic: Danny Elfman

THREE-TIME OSCAR®  NOMINEE DANNY ELFMAN'S
 ORIGINAL SCORE FOR CHARLOTTE'S WEB
ARRIVES IN STORES DECEMBER 5
ON SONY CLASSICAL'S ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK RECORDING
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000J3FBP2/ncdn
SOUNDTRACK FEATURES NEW SONG 'ORDINARY MIRACLE'
PERFORMED BY
 MULTIPLE GRAMMY®  AWARD WINNER SARAH MCLACHLAN  WRITTEN BY GRAMMY® AWARD WINNERS GLEN BALLARD AND DAVE STEWART

Paramount Pictures Film Stars Dakota Fanning
Features the Voices of Julia Roberts, Steve Buscemi, John Cleese,
Oprah Winfrey and Robert Redford
Opens Nationwide December 15th

(New York, NY-- November 27, 2006) Three-time Oscar® nominee and Grammy® Award-winning composer Danny Elfman's inspiring score for the motion picture Charlotte's Web will be released December 5 on Sony Classical's original soundtrack recording, which will also introduce the original song "Ordinary Miracle," performed by Sarah McLachlan and written by acclaimed songwriter/record producer Glen Ballard and music legend Dave Stewart.

New Releases http://astore.amazon.com/moviem-20

Topic: Basil Poledouris

Basil Poledouris has died aged 61. He succumbed to cancer. He was born 21 AUG 1945 in Kansas City MO. Died 8 NOV 2006. He studied at USC (where his fellow alumni included directors John Milius and Randal Kleiser) and, as well as writing music, was educated in the arts of acting, directing, cinematography, editing and sound. Having cut his teeth scoring student films and various TV-movies in the early 1970s, Poledouris first came to prominence in 1978, with his score for John Milius's "Big Wednesday". Since then, Poledouris has scored many successful films, predominantly in the action genre, but has never truly received the critical acclaim his talents deserve. Among his credits are films such as "The Blue Lagoon" (1980), "Conan the Barbarian" (1982), "Flesh + Blood" (1985), "Robocop" (1987), "Lonesome Dove" (1989,  for which he received his only major award, an Emmy), "The Hunt for Red October" (1990), "Free Willy" (1993), "Starship Troopers" (1997), "Les Misérables" (1998) and "For Love of the Game" (1999).

 

 BIOGRAPHY: http://www.basil-poledouris.com/basil/biography.html

OFFICIAL SITE: http://www.basil-poledouris.com/

Basil Poledouris on compact disc

 

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COMPLETE LORD OF THE RINGS TWO TOWERS
Topic: Howard Shore

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS
THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS
SET FOR RELEASE November 7, 2006
Available For The First Time!
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000IZJZIK/ncdn

Howard Shore's complete Grammy-winning score for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, from the epic film trilogy The Lord of the Rings, will be available in a deluxe four-disc edition from Reprise/WMG Soundtracks on November 7, 2006.

This historic release contains over 180 minutes of music on three CDs, comprising the full score of the 2002 film, composed by Howard Shore. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Complete Recordings marks the second edition of the three complete recording releases of the film trilogy whose score has been honored with three Academy Awards, four Grammy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards, and which has sold over 6 million copies worldwide. This deluxe set also includes exclusive new artwork, packaging, extensive liner notes written by Doug Adams, and "Gollum's Song" performed by Emiliana Torrini.

Composed for symphony orchestra and choir, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Complete Recordings was performed by London Philharmonic Orchestra, The London Voices, The London Oratory School Schola featuring vocal performances by Emiliana Torrini, Isabel Bayrakdarian, Sheila Chandra, Elizabeth Fraser, Ben Del Maestro and cast member Miranda Otto.  The fourth disc is a DVD-Audio presenting the entire The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Complete Recordings in 5.1 Surround Sound.

The boxed set for the complete recordings of the first film, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - The Complete Recordings, was released on December 13, 2005. It spent months in Amazon.com's top 100 Sales Ranking, and garnered some of the best reviews of the year. "For fans of any of The Lord of the Rings films, The Fellowship of the Ring/Complete Recordings is an essential experience," Heather Phares, All Music Guide.

"The Complete Recordings is last year's most important archival soundtrack release, expanding and preserving one of the finest and most significant recent scores in all of film music. Shore's Lord Of The Rings trilogy is an operatic symphony that is among the finest musical accomplishments of the last half-century. The plethora of unreleased material on this beautifully packaged edition is mouth-watering at the least, and the sonic dynamic achieved on the surround sound DVD of the entire 180-minute score is simply astonishing." Randall Larson, Music From the Movies

Composer of over sixty-five film scores, Howard Shore brought a lifetime of experience to creating the epochal soundtrack for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Shore used Tolkien's texts and drew from multiple periods throughout music history to evoke the book's enchanted worlds. He developed over 80 leitmotifs to describe the cultures of Middle-earth. Collaborating with authors/lyrists Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, he composed choral music utilizing the Tolkien-created languages for the Elves (Quenya and Sindarin), the Dwarves (Khuzdûl), Men (Adûnaic) and the evil cultures of Mordor (Black Speech). For Rohan, all the choral text was set in Old English.

In 2003, working with conductor John Mauceri, Shore created The Lord of the Rings Symphony, a two-hour 6 movement concert piece drawing from the nearly 12 hours of music he composed for Peter Jackson's landmark film trilogy. This piece features a full symphony orchestra, adult and children's choirs, as well as solo instrumentalists and vocalists, totaling more than 200 musicians on stage. Since its debut in November 2003 in Wellington, New Zealand, The Lord of the Rings Symphony has been performed in sold-out concerts on four continents and in some of the world's most legendary venues, including London's Royal Albert Hall, Moscow's Kremlin Palace Theater and Sydney's Opera House. Some of the world's leading international orchestras - including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony and London Philharmonic - have performed The Lord of the Rings Symphony in addition to regional orchestras across the United States, and this past July, the symphony celebrated its 100th performance by the San Francisco Symphony.

The UK's Classic FM voted The Lord of the Rings soundtracks the Best Film Score of All Time for five consecutive years. Shore's other impressive film credits include Martin Scorsese's The Aviator (Golden Globe Award), David Fincher's Se7en and Panic Room, Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia, and 11 films with David Cronenberg including A History of Violence and Spider. Shore is currently writing an opera based on his film collaboration with Cronenberg, The Fly, commissioned for the Los Angeles Opera, and he is also completing work on his fifth collaboration with Martin Scorsese, The Departed, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg.

Says Shore of his time on The Lord of the Rings, "Everybody felt that we were working on something important. It was a film that welcomed the intensity of our efforts. As much as we put into it, it showed us more. It was endlessly revealing working on The Lord of the Rings."

CASINO ROYAL (2006)
Now Playing: Latest Bond Flick
Topic: David Arnlod

From composer, David Arnold, the four-time Bond composer who created scores for Die Another Day, The World is Not Enough, and Tomorrow Never Dies comes the November 14th release of the Originial Motion Picture Soundtrack - Casino Royale,

 

CONSUMER INFORMATION:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000IOM1SW/ncdn

 

Topic: Henry Mancini

LIMITED EDITION EXPANDED SOUNDTRACK CONTAINS OVER TWO HOURS OF MUSIC COMPOSED BY HENRY MANCINI AND MICHAEL KAMEN
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000003TEL/ncdn
(October 10, 2006- Los Angeles, CA) - BuySoundtrax Records will be releasing a 2CD set of music from Lifeforce, composed two legendary composers, Henry Mancini and Michael Kamen.  The package will contain the complete original score composed by Mancini, the additional music by Kamen, the Film Version of "Grandson of The Web of Destiny", in addition to the original soundtrack album.

Lifeforce was the film adaptation of the novel The Space Vampires, by Colin Wilson.  Director Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist), took some liberties with the story to tie it in to the reappearance of Halley's Comet.  A space shuttle mission investigating the comet inadvertently brings back a race of space vampires to London who seek to transform the populace into zombies.  Cannon Films, felt the title Space Vampires seemed too low budget and the film was renamed Lifeforce. 

In 1985 when the vampire science fiction film Lifeforce was in need of a composer, the Academy AwardT winner Henry Mancini seemed an unlikely choice.  But when Hooper's first choice, James Horner, hot off the heels of his work with the first two Star Trek films, proved unavailable, Mancini was brought on board.

Henry Mancini may best be recognized for his work with more lighthearted film fare, like Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Pink Panther film series, but earlier in his career Mancini was a member of the music department at Universal Pictures.  As such he composed the scores for numerous horror and science fiction films like It Came From Outer Space, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and The Monolith Monsters, which led Hooper to see if Mancini was interested in revisiting the genre. 

THE RETURN
Topic: Andrey Zvyagintsey
The Return OST
Film by Andrey Zvyagintsev
Music by Andrey Dergatchev
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0009VJZ3I/ncdn
"One should not talk about but suggest what is of real importance."
Andrey Zvyagintsev

Venice Film Festival 2003. Among the films entered in the competition is the
debut of a young, unknown Russian director. His name is Andrey Zvyagintsev, the
title of the film The Return.

Greeted by ovations at its premiere, The Return sends the international press
into raptures and wins the Golden Lion for Best Film. Since then it has been
shown in cinemas around the world and showered with European and American
awards.

"One of the main ideas of the film is that of the eternal return,
of a certain natural cycle of life in which things come back
to the starting point."
Andrey Zvyagintsev

The Russian province seems deserted; a dark lake, surrounded by black rocks, sea
gulls crying in the distance. A group of boys jump into the black water, one
after the other, from a high tower. Two of them are brothers, and only Ivan, the
younger of the two, does not pass the test of courage. He is left behind in the
growing dark. Finally, his mother comes and convinces her shivering son to
descend the ladder: "You can jump some other time." But the feeling of failure
lingers.

Then the closed life of the family - mother, grandmother and the two boys - is
disrupted by a stranger. He appears suddenly and is accepted into their daily
routine as if this was the most natural thing in the world. It is the father
whom the brothers know only from a yellowed black-and-white photo. When Ivan
asks where he has come from, the mother replies, turning her face: "He is simply
here."

But not for long. After a short while, he disappears again, in the company of
his sons. What could have been, at first, interpreted as a fatherly gesture - a
man taking his sons on an outing - turns out to be an ordeal, the father
treating the boys in a cold, authoritative, sometimes even brutal manner. While
Ivan observes him with scepticism and dislike, Andrey, the older, willingly
fulfils the tasks or trials of courage that the father imposes on both. And the
boy's eyes show his desire to be loved and accepted.
The destination of their journey is a deserted island. Here, too, black water,
empty landscape, a high tower. And the turn that the film takes at this point
leaves the audience shaken to the core.

"In this movie everything is real: the rain, the sweat, the suffering, the
characters. Even time flows here as it does in life, not in the cinema. And
everything is primordial: the skyline, the sea, the forest, the fields, and the
human relationships. There are few signs of civilization.
  The heroes are face-to-face with nature and with one another. (...)
There is nothing here that rings false."
Valery Kichin

Zvyagintsev's aesthetics, in particular his stringently composed pictures,
sparse landscapes and his treatment of noise, natural sounds and music, bring to
mind the films of Andrey Tarkovsky. Starkly directed and atmospherically dense,
The Return leaves much room for interpretation.

"Nature here is beautiful and unpredictable: it turns heavily and fast, both on
the screen and on a soundtrack rich in ancient, folkloric resonances and written
with a pagan energy."
Valery Kichin

As important as the film's haunting pictures are the carefully edited soundtrack
and the music written by Andrey Dergatchev, which seems to evoke an ancient
Russia and reminds us, with its Duduk motives and vocals, of Armenian or
Georgian folk songs. These are contrasted with the everyday sounds of modern
Russia: voices on the radio and on the streets, announcements at the station,
wind and torrential rains threatening to swallow up pedestrians, doors slamming,
gulls crying, dogs barking. These sounds, in combination with cinematographer
Mikhail Krichman's highly suggestive pictures, are the film's trademark, lending
it a rhythm all of its own.
The sparse dialogues of the three travellers reflect their loneliness - the
sons' tone of longing for fatherly love, the father's stern voice of suppressed
affection. One senses the fear of intimacy and its irretrievable loss.
***
Through the soundtrack and even without a knowledge of Russian, one can grasp
the emotions and atmosphere of Zvyagintsev's strange world. 'Pure' hearing
creates a new kind of understanding.
Only great films are "audible" in this way - and The Return is one of them.

"There are not many film-makers, who have the capacity to present you with an
experience that still has a moving impact, on another level, when you close your
eyes."
Manfred Eicher on Jean-Luc Godard

Since the publication of the complete soundtrack of Godard's Nouvelle Vague,
Manfred Eicher has repeatedly included film projects in his musical catalogue.
The greatest of these to date is the award-winning CD edition of Jean-Luc
Godard's Histoire(s) du Cinéma which Paul Griffiths described as "a composition
in sound where speaking voice folds into orchestra, movie into music, creating
an aural river one can enjoy as it comes and remember for its instants of
illumination." (New York Times) The Return continues this river of sound. Here,
too, music, dialogue and the sounds of nature blend into one
***
Andrey Zvyagintsev, film director, was born in Novosibirsk in 1964. Since 1986
he has been living in Moscow. In 1990 he finished his studies at the Moscow
drama school GITIS. Zvyagintsev appeared in several independent theatre
productions and also worked as an actor in films (Otraschenije, 1998). In 2000
he debuted as a director with three short films for the TV series "Black Room".
"The Return" is his first full-length film.

Andrey Dergatchev, soundtrack creator, was born in 1969 in Astrakhan, Russia,
and has worked variously as a dancer, light and sound designer, musician and
actor as well as composer of music for film, video and ballet. From 1996 he
worked at the Theremin Centre of the Moscow Conservatory and has participated in
international symposiums devoted to music and new technology including the
Concours International Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges in 1997 and 2001.
Dergatchev co-founded the Saira Blanch Theatre group in 1991, which has toured
widely and collaborates periodically with Austrian interdisciplinary group Lux

Topic: Eleni Karaindrou

ECM NEW SERIES

Eleni Karaindrou
"Elegy of the Uprooting"

Release date: October 10, 2006
CONSUMER INFORMATION:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000H1R0GE/ncdn

Elegy of the Uprooting, a two-disc set, is Greek composer Eleni Karaindrou's first concert recording for ECM. A production marshalling powerful instrumental and vocal forces - 110 musicians in total - orchestra, choir, traditional instruments ensemble, soloists, the composer herself on piano, plus legendary singer Maria Farantouri -, all performing to a capacity hometown audience at the Megaron, Athens. An important chapter to Eleni's already distinguished discography, Elegy of the Uprooting is more than a "live album". It is a comprehensive resetting of Karaindrou's musical history, integrated into what she has called "a scenic cantata." 

The frame for the performance is supplied by music from The Weeping Meadow (originally written for Theo Angelopoulos' film of 2003), and Trojan Women, music for K.X. Myris' adaptation of the classic play by Euripides. These pieces - all receiving Greek concert premieres - provide a shaping context within which Eleni's compositions of the last three decades can be reintegrated and, at times, transformed. Musical material, then, is drawn from pieces written for the films The Weeping Meadow, Eternity and a Day, Ulysses' Gaze, The Suspended Step of the Stork, The Beekeeper, Landscape in the Mist and Voyage to Cythera (all by Angelopoulos), Happy Homecoming, Comrade (by Lefteris Xanthopoulos), and Rosa (by Christoforos Christofis ), as well as music from The Price of Love by Tonia Marketaki and from Jules Dassin's production of Chekhov's The Seagull. (Neither the Marketaki nor the Chekhov pieces have previously been featured on ECM discs).

Original program notes for the three evenings at the Athens Concert Hall in March 2005 - an event that drew an audience of more than 6,000 - spoke of "a journey in colours, sounds and rhythms, all shedding a penetrating light on Eleni Karaindrou's relationship with uprooting in her work." The composer herself describes the music as "a new entity" with "every composition taking its place as if it had always been there, part of a larger work, the Elegy of the Uprooting." It is remarkable how congruent and homogeneous the music as a whole seems, and how effortless the transitions.

Sound is exceptionally full-blooded for a concert recording and musical performances are all committed. Some of the players - including oboist Vangelis Christopoulos, french horn player Vangelis Skouras, clarinettist Nikos Guinos, trumpeter Socratis Anthis - have collaborated with Eleni for more than twenty years now, and the Camerata Orchestra and the Traditional Instruments Ensemble have become almost like an extended family. For the players, Karaindrou's themes - like Angelopoulos' images - are part of a shared language now; Eleni has spoken about "secret communication codes" between them.

Time Magazine has said that Karaindrou's music sings of "love and loss" and its themes of exile, exodus, uprooting, and homecoming are perhaps quintessentially "Greek". Her music for Trojan Women, as critic Giorgos Charonitis has noted, adapts itself well to the music for The Weeping Meadow - not least because Euripides and Angelopoulos are essentially addressing comparable human tragedy, in the same geographical region. Eleni: "While I was doing the Trojan Women, Theo (Angelopoulos) asked me to work on The Weeping Meadow, and I was shocked because it's exactly the same story of expatriation - 2500 years later." The title of the current project is in fact inspired by a line from Euripides: "I am driven out of my homeland." "Partings, expatriation, these are themes I know about in my own life..."

Eleni's Trojan Women score was composed for the Euripides adaptation by K. X. Myris -who had written lyrics for Karaindrou's first major work "The Great Vigilance", composed in Paris back in 1971. The singer on that early project was Maria Farantouri, the great voice of resistance and hope in the era of the military junta, and Theodorakis' important ally. Karaindrou and Farantouri had known each other as students in Athens in the 1960s and even played very briefly in a folk band together. They met again in France, Farantouri staying at Karaindrou's apartment: "Maria really encouraged me to work on composing songs," Eleni recalls.

Of the Elegy of the Uprooting, Eleni Karaindrou says: "I created a new musical journey where new and old wayfarers join in. The highly distinctive oboe of Vangelis Christopoulos (which has been one of the 'signature' voices of Eleni's writing since Voyage to Cythera) now "merges with the Contantinople lyra in Ulysses' Gaze, and Trojan Women bring the pain of exile back to life through Maria's voice and the voices of the women's choir of the 'Ode of Tears'." Farantouri, who joins the chorus at several points, also sings a very touching "Rosa", reinterpreting the song Eleni wrote for Christofis' film about dreams and revolution, as well as "Song of the Lake" from the aforementioned Dassin/Chekhov production of 1985.

Eleni Karaindrou was born in the Greek mountain village of Teichio. She studied piano and musical theory at the Athens Hellenic Conservatory, history and archaeology at the University of Athens, and ethnomusicology and orchestration at the Sorbonne and the Scuola Cantorum in Paris.

Since 1975 she has composed music for more than twenty feature films, and for more than 40 theatre plays and numerous television productions. Collaborating most often with Greek directors - above all Theo Angelopoulos, with whom she has had an ongoing creative association since 1983 - she has also worked with Harold Pinter, Chris Marker, Jules Dassin, Margarethe von Trotta and others.

Karaindrou has received numerous awards including the State Music Award (Greece) for her music for Eternity and a Day, the Dmitris Mitropoulos Award for her music for theatre (1994-96), and the Fellini Award from Europa Cinema, Italy. In 2002 she received the Golden Cross of the Order of Honor from the Greek president, for her life's work. In 2004 she was nominated for the European Film Award for her music for the Oscar nominated (Best Foreign Film), The Weeping Meadow.

Eleni Karaindrou has been an ECM recording artist since 1991, working closely with producer Manfred Eicher in rearranging and adapting compositions originally written for stage and screen for album release. Her ECM discs are Music for Films, The Suspended Step of the Stork, Ulysses' Gaze, Eternity and a Day, Trojan Women, The Weeping Meadow and Elegy of the Uprooting.

Topic: Danny Elfman

For a free preview of the CD, visit http://www.serenadaschizophrana.com/mediaplayer

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  

http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000HEZF7C/ncdn [consumer information]

DANNY ELFMAN'S FIRST CONCERT WORK
 SERENADA SCHIZOPHRANA
IN STORES OCTOBER 3rd ON SONY CLASSICAL

Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated composer of music for over 100 films and tv series - Batman, Spiderman, Good Will Hunting, Edward Scissorhands, "The Simpsons"

Work premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2005 - music later featured in IMAX's Deep Sea 3D

Adding another facet to an already brilliant life in music, Danny Elfman steps out from his career-defining role as a Grammy Award-winning, Oscar-nominated composer of original music for film (Batman, Spiderman, Beetle Juice, The Nightmare Before Christmas) and television ("Pee-Wee's Playhouse," "The Simpsons," "Desperate Housewives") with the release of Serenada Schizophrana, his first orchestral composition written specifically for the concert hall. 

The world premiere of Serenada Schizophrana at Carnegie Hall on February 23, 2005 drew ecstatic reviews across-the-board from both classical music and pop culture critics.  It subsequently received worldwide exposure as the featured music in the soundtrack to the IMAX film Deep Sea 3D which was narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet.  The Sony Classical recording is conducted by John Mauceri, best known for his sixteen years as conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.

The genesis of Serenada Schizophrana   was a commission from the American Composers Orchestra (ACO), a new honor for Elfman and a challenge that he welcomed.   Without the usual visuals to drive his orchestral music, he writes, "I began composing several dozen short improvisational compositions, none of them related.  Slowly, some of them began to develop themselves until I had six separate movements that, in some abstract, absurd way, felt connected."

Serenada Schizophrana was scored for large orchestra, electronics, two pianos, and female voices.  "With six movements, rolling piano solos . and the charming hoots and chirps of eight female voices," wrote Bernard Holland in the New York Times, "Mr. Elfman gave us music comfortable in its own world and highly professional in its execution . The composer of this piece has an ear for symphonic colors and how to balance them."

"In keeping with the piece's title," Mac Randall also noted at the time in the New York Observer, "the music veered madly from Ellingtonian whimsy to Bernard Herrmannesque agitation . The tortured swing of the third movement conjured up the image of a jazz band on a storm-tossed raft, with trash-can cymbals acting as the crashing waves.  And the furious horn-stoked climax and surprising last-second resolution of the closing movement made for a rousing finish."

For Elfman, a self-taught musician who had never heard any of his orchestral music performed live on stage, it was a "thrilling experience."  Highly influenced by the work of such mid-20th century film composers Bernard Herrmann, Nino Rota, Dimitri Tiomkin, Max Steiner and Erich Korngold, among many others, Elfman's music is also tempered by Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Orff and Bartók, as well as early Duke Ellington.  "I am forever attached to the music of the early 20th century," Elfman writes.  To this mix, he adds his recent discoveries of Harry Partch, Philip Glass and Lou Harrison. 

Serenada Schizophrana is a 'gumbo' of all these styles and influences, as conjured up by the imaginative and often surreal pen of Danny Elfman.  A prolific composer for more than a quarter-century, Elfman has written music for over a hundred films and tv series.  He is well-known for his collaborations with equally eccentric director Tim Burton on a partnership that began in 1985 with Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, and went on to include Beetle Juice (1988), Batman (1989, whose theme won the Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Batman Returns (1992), Mars Attacks! (1996), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Planet Of the Apes (2001), Big Fish (2003), Charlie and The Chocolate Factory (2005), and Corpse Bride (2005).

For most of this time (until about a decade ago) Elfman was a mainstay of the beloved Los Angeles-based group Oingo Boingo, which was originally assembled in the late-'70s by his older brother, writer-director Richard Elfman, to provide the music for his first movie Forbidden Zone (1980).  The group flourished (over the course of eight albums) but also became ubiquitous on movie soundtracks through the '80s: Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982), Bachelor Party (1984), Weird Science (whose title song became a pop hit, 1985), Something Wild (1986), to name a few.

Meanwhile, as his working friendship with Burton grew in the '90s (and Oingo Boingo eventually disbanded), Elfman focused on what turned into a string of some 50 signature movie soundtracks, among them: Dick Tracy (1990), Sommersby (1993), Dolores Claiborne, Dead Presidents, and To Die For (all 1995), Mission Impossible (1996), the Men In Black franchise (1997, 2002), Good Will Hunting (1997), Chicago (2002), and Nacho Libre (2006).  Upcoming projects include Disney's animated Meet the Robinsons, Paramount's adaptation of Charlotte's Web.

Topic: Malcolm Arnold

Sir Malcolm Arnold...

Passed away on  September 23rd in hospital after a brief illness at the age of 84. Sir Malcolm, who won an Oscar for the musical score to "Bridge On The River Kwai" in 1958, was suffering from a chest infection. He is most famous for his film scores, composing 132 including "Whistle Down The Wind", "Hobson's Choice", the "St. Trinian's" series, "The Inn Of the Sixth Happiness", "Tunes Of Glory" and "Battle Of Britain." Malcolm Arnold studied trumpet, conducting and composition at the Royal College of Music, London. He was principal trumpet in the London Philharmonic Orchestra from 1942 to 1948, subsequently becoming a full-time film composer. Arnold's achievement in winning an Oscar for "Bridge On The River Kwai" is fascinating. Because they wanted to release the film in time to qualify for an Oscar, they couldn't find anybody who would do the music score in time. They gave him 10 days, and he wrote the complete score in that time. It's hard to find anyone from that era who doesn't know (or cannot whistle) the theme. "Colonel Bogey March." Sir Malcom Arnold also composed nine symphonies.<A HREF="http://www.malcolmarnold.co.uk/index.php"> BIO SITE</a>

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Scoop is the new contemporary comedy from writer/director Woody Allen who stars in the film with Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson, and Ian McShane. Scoop is the second consecutive picture that the filmmaker has set and shot in London (following Match Point).   The soundtrack for Scoop will be in stores July 25th on Decca and includes several classical tracks hand-picked by Mr.  Allen.

Topic: James Newton Howard

LADY IN THE WATER. 

The film is by writer/director M. Night Shyamalan (The Village, Signs, Unbreakable, The Sixth Sense) and is a story he originally conceived for his children.

Topic: John Ottman
SUPERMAN composer JOHN OTTMAN was tempted to create a new theme tune for the latest superhero movie, but stuck with JOHN WILLIAMS' classic music for the sake of the movie's fans. Ottman, who also edited the film, admits it was hard turning down the chance to create his own music, but couldn't bring himself to dispose of such an iconic theme just for the sake of his ego. He says, "It was a bittersweet process for me because it's always great when you can write your own theme. I vacillated between that and, 'Hey this is an opportunity to keep alive one of the greatest themes ever written.' "My ego squashing the greatest theme ever would be tragic. I completely understand the fan mentality and I would be one of the rioters in the street if we didn't use his theme."

Directed by Richard Linklater, Featuring a Star Studded Cast, and Based on the Philip K. Dick Novel, A Scanner Darkly Features Evocative Original Music by Graham Reynolds With Re-Mixes by DJ Spooky and Jack Dangers (June 7, 2006- Los Angeles, CA) - In theaters July 7, A Scanner Darkly is Richard Linklater's adaptation of the Philip K. Dick classic novel. Graham Reynolds composed the original music, which he performed with a cast of Austin-based musicians including his group Golden Arm Trio. The soundtrack recording, on Lakeshore Records, features the score plus two re-mixes, by DJ Spooky and Jack Dangers (Meat Beat Manifesto) A Scanner Darkly tells the darkly comedic, but deeply tragic tale of drug use in the modern world. The film plays like a graphic novel come to life to create a haunting version of America, seven years from now. America's endless and futile war on drugs has become one and the same with its war on terror. Reluctant undercover agent Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) follows orders to spy on his friends, Jim Barris (Robert Downey Jr.), Ernie Luckman (Woody Harrelson), Donna Hawthorne (Winona Ryder), and Charles Freck (Rory Cochrane). When he is directed to step up the surveillance on himself, he is launched on a paranoid journey into the absurd, where identities and loyalties are impossible to decode. To interpret this story Richard Linklater used a unique technique. He took live-action photography and overlaid it with an advanced animation process known as interpolated rotoscoping which he first employed in the film Waking Life. An original visual experience needs an original score. That's where Graham Reynolds came in. Composer Graham Reynolds is a composer, bandleader, pianist, and drummer based in Austin, TX, who works constantly in theater, dance, film, concert halls, and nightclubs. His compositions include four symphonies, two operas, a violin concerto, more than a dozen one movement string quartets and countless chamber music pieces. He also the drummer-pianist for Golden Arm Trio, described by RollingStone.com as a group which "freely charges into other realms as a composer-performer: string quartets, symphonies, soundtracks, improvised super-rock., crossbreeding classical futurism and punk esprit." Austin-based director Richard Linklater approached Reynolds three years ago at a club gig and asked him to compose the music for A Scanner Darkly. For over a year and a half, Reynolds composed the score, gathering musicians from the lineup of his band Golden Arm Trio and began rehearsals before committing the score to tape and mixing in his bedroom of his east Austin home. Both with the time allotted to compose for the project his methods used to write and record the music, Reynolds' approach was very different than that of other film composers. "Since the film was being animated, we had a year to work after the final cut was locked," said Reynolds. He began with an all-acoustic, somewhat jazz-noir sound, and kept exploring different approaches, ending up with music that was halfway between an acoustic and an electronic score. Reynolds described, "all the sounds originally came from acoustic instruments, but for much of the film, they are processed, mangled, and otherwise transformed. The result is something very textured and organic, but also otherworldly, sounding drug-induced and unidentifiable. In a traditional three-week window, we never could have gotten to the place this music ended up in." The result is a score called "eerily evocative" by Variety. Cinematical says "Graham Reynolds' score. fit subtly and perfectly with the unique look of the film." The soundtrack CD contains the music composed for the film plus two remixes, by DJ Spooky and by Jack Dangers (Meat Beat Manifesto). Reynolds said, "I've always admired electronic musicians and remixers, it's so out of the musical realm that I normally work in it's fascinating to me and these two top my list. Their signing on was an honor and I was intensely curious to hear what they would do with my stuff. The results are fantastic.