Oscar’s music branch was particularly broad-minded for this year’s Oscar shortlist, choosing 15 scores that run the gamut from conventional to experimental, echoing ancient times as well as anticipating the music of the future.
Academy voters were especially encouraging of women (one score) and people of color (four), statistics that are heartening and may bode well for the nominations themselves.
At this point, “Dune” would seem to be the frontrunner, as Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of the Frank Herbert sci-fi classic has been acclaimed for many of its craft accomplishments. Veteran composer Hans Zimmer (already an Oscar winner for “The Lion King”) pulled out all the stops, including months of experimenting with women’s voices, having instruments designed and built, and merging it all with world-music and synthesized sounds appropriate for the desert planet Arrakis.
Also high on many prediction lists are two Jonny Greenwood scores: “The Power of the Dog” and “Spencer.
Academy voters were especially encouraging of women (one score) and people of color (four), statistics that are heartening and may bode well for the nominations themselves.
At this point, “Dune” would seem to be the frontrunner, as Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of the Frank Herbert sci-fi classic has been acclaimed for many of its craft accomplishments. Veteran composer Hans Zimmer (already an Oscar winner for “The Lion King”) pulled out all the stops, including months of experimenting with women’s voices, having instruments designed and built, and merging it all with world-music and synthesized sounds appropriate for the desert planet Arrakis.
Also high on many prediction lists are two Jonny Greenwood scores: “The Power of the Dog” and “Spencer.
- 1/10/2022
- by Jon Burlingame
- Variety Film + TV
Every Wes Anderson film is filled with musical delights, from offbeat songs to unexpected score cues, and “The French Dispatch” is no exception.
Composer Alexandre Desplat and music supervisor Randall Poster are among the first to read any new Anderson script. “He and I have been corresponding with music since the day we met,” says Poster, “and over the course of 25 years there’s a lot of musical history that we draw upon for different projects.”
“The French Dispatch,” an homage to the New Yorker magazine’s traditions and writers, was special for the Paris-based Desplat because the film is based in “a fantasized France,” as he puts it, a not-quite-real France as seen through Anderson’s unique prism.
Desplat scored the opening sequence (with Bill Murray as the editor) and two of the three episodes in the film, about an imprisoned artist (Benicio del Toro) and a police commissioner...
Composer Alexandre Desplat and music supervisor Randall Poster are among the first to read any new Anderson script. “He and I have been corresponding with music since the day we met,” says Poster, “and over the course of 25 years there’s a lot of musical history that we draw upon for different projects.”
“The French Dispatch,” an homage to the New Yorker magazine’s traditions and writers, was special for the Paris-based Desplat because the film is based in “a fantasized France,” as he puts it, a not-quite-real France as seen through Anderson’s unique prism.
Desplat scored the opening sequence (with Bill Murray as the editor) and two of the three episodes in the film, about an imprisoned artist (Benicio del Toro) and a police commissioner...
- 10/23/2021
- by Jon Burlingame
- Variety Film + TV
It’s been such a long wait for the release of the new film from Wes Anderson that the filmmaker himself is already prepping to shoot his next film this summer. 2021, however, is finally the year of The French Dispatch and ahead of a Cannes Film Festival debut, a stateside premiere at New York Film Festival, and a release on October 22, we’ve now got another tease in the form of the official soundtrack details and a preview.
Made up of 25 tracks, the score comes from Anderson’s recent frequent collaborator Alexandre Desplat as well piano solos performed by Jean-Yves Thibaudet, notes Film Music Reporter, who revealed the first details. Also including songs by Grace Jones, Ennio Morricone, Jarvis Cocker, Chantal Goya, and more, we’ve collected the currently available tracks on a Spotify playlist. The tracklist itself also gives some hints at what to expect from the story with car chases,...
Made up of 25 tracks, the score comes from Anderson’s recent frequent collaborator Alexandre Desplat as well piano solos performed by Jean-Yves Thibaudet, notes Film Music Reporter, who revealed the first details. Also including songs by Grace Jones, Ennio Morricone, Jarvis Cocker, Chantal Goya, and more, we’ve collected the currently available tracks on a Spotify playlist. The tracklist itself also gives some hints at what to expect from the story with car chases,...
- 6/15/2021
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Plays Tribute to the Music of John Williams in Sept. 13th-15th Concerts
Music Director Stéphane Denève and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra will take audiences on a tour-de-force journey through some of Hollywood’s most thrilling movies in the first concerts of the 2019/2020 season: The Music of John Williams. Concerts are 7:00pm Friday and Saturday, September 13-14, and 2:30pm Sunday, September 15.
A bedrock of film music, John Williams redefined the American music landscape with his work on some of Hollywood’s biggest films, including Indiana Jones, Jaws, E.T. – The Extraterrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Harry Potter. The Slso plays Williams’ most memorable themes, along with music from lesser-known films including Memoirs of a Geisha and The Book Thief. Slso Principal Cello Daniel Lee and Assistant Concertmaster Erin Schreiber take center stage on the program, performing selections from Memoirs of a Geisha and Schindler’s List, respectively.
A collaborator and personal friend of Denève’s, the Slso...
A bedrock of film music, John Williams redefined the American music landscape with his work on some of Hollywood’s biggest films, including Indiana Jones, Jaws, E.T. – The Extraterrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Harry Potter. The Slso plays Williams’ most memorable themes, along with music from lesser-known films including Memoirs of a Geisha and The Book Thief. Slso Principal Cello Daniel Lee and Assistant Concertmaster Erin Schreiber take center stage on the program, performing selections from Memoirs of a Geisha and Schindler’s List, respectively.
A collaborator and personal friend of Denève’s, the Slso...
- 8/15/2019
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Ravel: Concerto for Piano & Orchestra in G major; Concerto in D major for the Left Hand; Fauré: Ballade in F-sharp minor, Op. 19 Yuja Wang/Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra/Lionel Bringuier (Deutsche Grammophon) Complete Piano Works of Ravel: Sérénade grotesque; Menuet antique; Pavane pour une Infante défunte; Jeux d'eau; Sonatine; Miroirs; Gaspard de la nuit; Menuet sur le nom de Haydn; Valses Nobles et Sentimentales; Prélude; À la manière de…Borodine; À la manière de…Chabrier; Le Tombeau de Couperin; Menuet in C-sharp minor; La Valse; Casella: À la manière de…Ravel; Honegger: Hommage à Ravel; Briggs: Encore avec Ravel; Plate: Erinnerung au Maurice Ravel; Mason: Galoches en d'aoút Hinrich Alpers (Honens) Ravel: Miroirs; Pavane pour une infante defunte; Gaspard de la nuit Carlo Grante (Music & Arts)
The promo mailings have recently yielded a new crop of Ravel recordings. None displace my favorites, but all are interesting and worth discussing.
The promo mailings have recently yielded a new crop of Ravel recordings. None displace my favorites, but all are interesting and worth discussing.
- 11/27/2015
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Czech Philharmonic/Jirí Bělohlávek with Jean-Yves Thibaudet Janáček: Taras Bulba Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 2 Dvořák:Symphony No. 9, "From the New World" Carnegie Hall Nov. 16, 2014
Since I previewed this Sunday afternoon concert, I'll skip repeating the background information -- except to note that I've since learned this was the group's first NYC appearance in ten years -- and get right to considering the performance itself. To give away the conclusion up front, in my notes, I used the words "perfect" and "wonderful" a lot.
The Janáček tone poem opened the program. It's not a favorite of mine (actually, it may be my least favorite piece by this composer), but Bělohlávek and his band can't be faulted. Tempos were a bit on the quick side (23 minutes total), welcomingly limiting the bombast somewhat, yet everything was still crystal clear. Early on the concertmaster, Josef Špaček Jr., demonstrated his magnificent combination of warm tone, supple phrasing,...
Since I previewed this Sunday afternoon concert, I'll skip repeating the background information -- except to note that I've since learned this was the group's first NYC appearance in ten years -- and get right to considering the performance itself. To give away the conclusion up front, in my notes, I used the words "perfect" and "wonderful" a lot.
The Janáček tone poem opened the program. It's not a favorite of mine (actually, it may be my least favorite piece by this composer), but Bělohlávek and his band can't be faulted. Tempos were a bit on the quick side (23 minutes total), welcomingly limiting the bombast somewhat, yet everything was still crystal clear. Early on the concertmaster, Josef Špaček Jr., demonstrated his magnificent combination of warm tone, supple phrasing,...
- 11/18/2014
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Czech conductor Jirí Bělohlávek recently won the Antonín Dvořák Prize for his promotion of Czech classical music in general and Dvořák's in particular. At Carnegie Hall on Sunday afternoon, Nov. 16, he will actually receive the award after a concert in which he will lead the Czech Philharmonic and in a program of Janáček's tone poem Taras Bulba, Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2 with soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, "From the New World."
Nov. 16 is also the 25th anniversary of the start of the 1989 "Velvet Revolution," which peacefully ended Communist rule of what was then Czechoslovakia (it split into two countries in 1993). This is no coincidence. In connection with this concert, the government of the Czech Republic has allowed Dvořák's original manuscript for the symphony [title page shown above] out of the country for the first time since the composer brought it home on returning from his sojourn in the United States, where it...
Nov. 16 is also the 25th anniversary of the start of the 1989 "Velvet Revolution," which peacefully ended Communist rule of what was then Czechoslovakia (it split into two countries in 1993). This is no coincidence. In connection with this concert, the government of the Czech Republic has allowed Dvořák's original manuscript for the symphony [title page shown above] out of the country for the first time since the composer brought it home on returning from his sojourn in the United States, where it...
- 11/15/2014
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Marianelli & Wright
Dario Marianelli, an Italian composer, has been slowly making his way into the popular film score scene since the early 1990s. His style tends to combine traditional classical and programmatic music sensibilities found in composers like Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, and Chopin. Although there have only been trailers up until this point, his upcoming work for The Boxtrolls seems particularly innovative and different for his usual work.
Marianelli’s most notable score work has been in his frequent collaborations with director Joe Wright. The two have worked together on four films–Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, The Soloist, and Anna Karenina–and the bulk of Marianelli’s critical acclaim and notoriety has come from these particular projects (though he is certainly deserving elsewhere). For this month’s column, I’ll look at the essential themes from each Wright/Marianelli’s period pieces (given that The Soloist borrows heavily from other classical...
Dario Marianelli, an Italian composer, has been slowly making his way into the popular film score scene since the early 1990s. His style tends to combine traditional classical and programmatic music sensibilities found in composers like Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, and Chopin. Although there have only been trailers up until this point, his upcoming work for The Boxtrolls seems particularly innovative and different for his usual work.
Marianelli’s most notable score work has been in his frequent collaborations with director Joe Wright. The two have worked together on four films–Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, The Soloist, and Anna Karenina–and the bulk of Marianelli’s critical acclaim and notoriety has come from these particular projects (though he is certainly deserving elsewhere). For this month’s column, I’ll look at the essential themes from each Wright/Marianelli’s period pieces (given that The Soloist borrows heavily from other classical...
- 2/27/2014
- by Fran Hoepfner
- SoundOnSight
Born August 22, 1862 in St.-Germaine-en-Laye, France, Claude-Achille Debussy was a child prodigy pianist who was admitted to the Paris Conservatory at age 10. Now generally considered to have been the greatest French composer, Debussy is proof that great art can come from terrible human beings. He was supremely self-centered and selfish. Two women -- one his wife -- attempted to kill themselves after he ended his relationships with them in cruelly casual fashion; his behavior was so beyond acceptable norms, even by bohemian French standards, that many of his friends turned their backs on him. In the midst of his greatest personal controversy, when he'd left his wife for a married woman and moved with the latter to England for awhile after to escape the constant recriminations, he wrote his biggest masterpiece, La Mer.
But, of course, there's nothing the French enjoy more than a controversy. Debussy's music was controversial as well.
But, of course, there's nothing the French enjoy more than a controversy. Debussy's music was controversial as well.
- 8/16/2012
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Here's what I have to say to all the people who bemoan the state of classical music: My classical list is the last one I'm posting (as has often been the case) because there were so many great releases to listen to that I didn't finish until now.
I want to once again admit the biases operating in my best-of-the-year classical lists: I am most interested in the piano, choral, and symphonic literatures. I’m happy to listen to other things when they come my way, but those are what I seek out, vastly tipping the balance in their favor (tipping the balance against opera is the increasing disinclination of record companies to send promos for new opera recordings unless one specifically asks -- and even that is no guarantee). Also note: no reissues or compilations here. That disqualified even the first box-set appearance of David Zinman's fine Mahler cycle,...
I want to once again admit the biases operating in my best-of-the-year classical lists: I am most interested in the piano, choral, and symphonic literatures. I’m happy to listen to other things when they come my way, but those are what I seek out, vastly tipping the balance in their favor (tipping the balance against opera is the increasing disinclination of record companies to send promos for new opera recordings unless one specifically asks -- and even that is no guarantee). Also note: no reissues or compilations here. That disqualified even the first box-set appearance of David Zinman's fine Mahler cycle,...
- 1/5/2012
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
There are some traditions that live up to their reputations, and a summer outdoors concert at the Hollywood Bowl is certainly the epitome of amazing Los Angeles traditions.
Opening night, often occurring close to the longest day of the year, is always one of the highlights of the concert season. Accompanied by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the night welcomes the induction of three honorees into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame. This year's honorees included pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, The Carpenters, and disco queen Donna Summer. The night also supported Music Matters, the musical education program of the La Phil ...
Copyright 2010 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Opening night, often occurring close to the longest day of the year, is always one of the highlights of the concert season. Accompanied by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the night welcomes the induction of three honorees into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame. This year's honorees included pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, The Carpenters, and disco queen Donna Summer. The night also supported Music Matters, the musical education program of the La Phil ...
Copyright 2010 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
- 6/22/2010
- by AccessHollywood.com Editorial Staff
- Access Hollywood
Music director Robert Spano and principal guest conductor Donald Runnicles announce 2009-10 season of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. This season will mark Orchestra's 65th anniversary season, the Youth Orchestra's 35th anniversary season, and Mr. Spano and Mr. Runnicles's ninth season. Culminating the season, the League of American Orchestras will host the 65th National Conference in Atlanta, which will also kick off the 10th Anniversary of the Atlanta School of Composers by featuring new works by the composers. Mr. Spano and The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra will perform five world premieres during the 2009-10 65th Anniversary Season, three of which are Aso commissions. Atlanta School of Composers Jennifer Higdon and Michael Gandolfi; Wynton Marsalis's American Symphony; Angel Lam's New Cello Concerto with Soloist Yo-Yo Ma; and Dejan Lazic's New Piano Arrangement of Brahms's Violin Concerto. The 2009/10 Season's guest artists and conductors to include: Yo-Yo Ma, Lang Lang, Midori, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Jon Kimura Parker,...
- 1/28/2009
- BroadwayWorld.com
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