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Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance Embarks on Huge Stadium Tour (Manchester Evening News)
Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance is coming to Manchester as part of a huge stadium tour celebrating 25 years of the show. Since its premiere, Lord of the Dance has been performed at 1,000 venues worldwide, but this time, it’s refreshing the classic elements of the show.
“I have the greatest team of dancers,” Flatley says.
He adds: “They are excited to be part of Lord of the Dance and every single one of them is trained to the highest standards of dance, athleticism and precision. I’m so proud of them.”
The show will premiere globally on St Patrick's Day in 2022 at the Eventim Apollo, London in aid of The Ireland Funds charity.
The show began as part of Michael Flatley’s dream to bring Irish dancing to a worldwide audience – starting with a performance at Eurovision in 1994.
It claims to transcend culture and language by captivating audiences with aerial moves, dancing and theatrical effects.
Flatley adds: “It’s hard to believe that we’re already celebrating 25 years of Lord of the Dance. I’m so proud of this show and what we’ve achieved.
“Over the years, we’ve had thousands of dancers from around the world be part of our story and I’m honoured to have been able to give them this opportunity to follow their passion.
“The incredible synergy between performers and audiences has been part of the magic for 25 years. We’re looking forward to this next tour as everyone deserves a positive and uplifting 2022!”
Tickets are currently on sale right now.
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‘Being the Ricardos’ Composer Daniel Pemberton on Crafting an Orchestral Score With Nostalgia and Wonder (Variety)
Pemberton (a best song Oscar nominee for Sorkin’s last film, “The Trial of the Chicago 7”) wrote music for a 70-piece orchestra evocative of the era, and based primarily on a single theme, “with a bittersweet melancholia to it, but also an element of aspiration and dream.”
“A big overarching theme has become relatively unfashionable,” Pemberton says, referring to the fact that many contemporary directors shy away from strong melodies and big orchestras. “I felt this was a beautiful canvas to reintroduce that idea.”
Daniel Pemberton’s score for Aaron Sorkin’s “Being the Ricardos” is unlike anything he’s written to date — a surprising choice for this think-outside-the-box composer, but one that would fit comfortably in the 1950s milieu of the film itself.
Pemberton toiled on what eventually became more than 65 minutes of music for the story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz battling bad press, relationship issues and troublesome network executives, all while continuing to produce TV’s popular “I Love Lucy.”
“I wanted to find a different way to represent the energy of that world, the writers, the pace, the tension of the show,” Pemberton says.
His biggest challenge turned out to be the flashback sequences. “It took a long time to get that tone right,” he says, as Sorkin didn’t want to play any of that for laughs or nostalgia. “We have to see Lucy thinking, working things out, letting the audience understand the process she goes through. I re-scored that scene about 20 times.”
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Gustavo Santaolalla Discusses Finch Soundtrack (The Playlist)
As you can hear in the title track, “Finch,” the score for the film is just as epic and beautiful as you’d expect from a feature helmed by Miguel Sapochnik and starring Tom Hanks about a man venturing out into the post-apocalypse with his trusty dog and his newly created robot companion.
Santaolalla is no stranger to composing incredible scores. He’s one of the rare composers to actually win back-to-back Oscars, thanks to his work in 2005’s “Brokeback Mountain” and 2006’s “Babel.”
“The possibility of composing and playing for such a wonderful film as ‘Finch’ was an immediate source of inspiration,” said Santaolalla. “The unusual combination of characters and the mix of suspense, action, humor and tenderness laid out a canvas full of possibilities – from big, powerful action scenes to intimate moments where the emotions of the story and characters take over. Working once again with David Campbell as an orchestrator allowed me to move seamlessly from large orchestra to chamber-sized pieces. In this particular moment we find ourselves living, the music for ‘Finch’ has become very special to me. Happy that finally I can share it with all of you.”
Read the full article here.
Nicholas Britell, Kris Bowers and Hildur Guðnadóttir to Play at Walt Disney Concert Hall (Variety)
For Kris Bowers, “not much can beat the feeling of being in the room when a group of musicians pours their heart into a piece of music — especially when it’s your own.”
It’s an emotion the Emmy-winning composer and jazz pianist hopes to capture with “Reel Change: The New Era of Film Music,” a concert series built alongside fellow composers Nicholas Britell and Hildur Guðnadóttir in collaboration with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Taking place Nov. 19-21 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the three individually curated programs shine a spotlight on the next generation of composers across film, television and video games.
“When you are performing for an audience, you and the audience are breathing the same air. You are experiencing exactly the same frequencies and listening to exactly the same things at the same time. So the dynamics of the shared experience of the listening creates a very special atmosphere,” says Oscar-, Emmy- and Grammy-winning Icelandic composer and cellist Guðnadóttir, whose program kicks off the series.
For his program on Nov. 20, Bowers opted for medleys of his work on “King Richard,” “Bridgerton” and “Green Book,” as well as a composition of pieces from Bowers’ musical influences, from Björk to Arcade Fire to Shigeru Umebayashi.
Seeking to tap into the emotions and themes of his projects, Bowers also worked together with his wife, Briana Henry, on a series of original film shorts, paired with new poetry by Yrsa Daley-Ward inspired by the shorts’ music and themes.
“The last live performance that I attended was at the Disney Hall, so it feels nice to be coming back to live music in this way,” says Bowers.
Read full Variety article here
Brian Wilson Shares Trailer for Long Promised Road (Pitchfork)
A new trailer and poster has been shared for the forthcoming documentary Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road. Check them both out below.
The film was directed by Brent Wilson (no relation) and is set for simultaneous release in theaters and video-on-demand on November 19. It features extended interviews between the Beach Boys co-founder and Rolling Stone editor Jason Fine, as well as appearances by Al Jardine, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Nick Jonas, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Jakob Dylan, Foo Fighter’s Taylor Hawkins, and more.
The premiere coincides with Brian Wilson’s new solo piano album At My Piano, a collection of stripped-back classics from his catalog, also due out November 19.
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Oscars 2022: Best Original Score (IndieWire)
The race for Best Original Score is marked by experimentation and invention, highlighted by the innovative frontrunner “Dune,” “The Power of the Dog,” “Spencer,” “Cyrano,” “King Richard,” “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” “Nightmare Alley,” and “Candyman.” Plus, two animated musicals — both graced by the songwriting chops of the very hot Lin-Manuel Miranda — experiment with the cultural sounds of Colombia and Cuba: Disney’s magical “Encanto” (from Germaine Franco, the studio’s first woman composer to score an animated feature), and Sony/Netflix’s “Vivo” (scored by Alex Lacamoire).
Jonny Greenwood achieves his own masterful musical invention for Jane Campion’s psychological western, “The Power of the Dog” (Netflix). Inspired by the repression and savagery of Montana rancher Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch), Greenwood twists orchestral instruments into unique sounds to convey his loneliness, isolation, and yearning set against the beautiful landscape and his prison-like ranch house. A cello becomes a banjo for a unique sophistication, an atonal piano evokes pain, and French horns and strings have an aching quality. Greenwood essentially turns his score into a nightmare. (Greenwood also contends for “Spencer,” Pablo Larraín’s fable about the painful Christmas holiday of ’91 for Kristen Stewart’s Princess Diana. His score is about the colorful chaos of jazz set against the traditional orchestra that represents the Royal family. It starts with a baroque orchestra that mutates into free jazz by substituting instruments, one at a time, with the jazz performers.)….
In a season blessed by experimentation and invention, Hans Zimmer's "Dune" frontrunner goes up against Jonny Greenwood's "The Power of the Dog."
Frontrunners
“Cyrano”
“Dune”
“King Richard”
“The Power of the Dog”
“The Tragedy of Macbeth”
Rachel Portman Discusses the Julia Soundtrack (The Film Music Institute)
There’s always been a delicious zest to Rachel Portman’s way with outsized characters, a talent for hearing life as a sympathetically loopy, waltzing circus as capable of laughter as it is heartbreak. From the clowning Johnny Depp that put the English composer on the Hollywood map with 1993’s “Benny and Joon” to a gallery of aristocrats high and low born, American eccentrics from the city and trailer hoods and any number of dottily magical characters, Portman’s tell-tale melodic voice is no more joyous than when celebrating individuals who capture the public’s imagination, no more so than when mixing the ingredients to embody the larger-than-life, French-trained, Pasadena-born bon vivant Julia Child, the woman who brought nascent food porn to tastefully break America out of its jello and hotdog-bound kitchen rut into the land of anyone-can-cook-it gourmet courses.
“Emma” Oscar winner Rachel Portman whisks together a magical concoction whose ingredients are immediately recognizable at first bite.
Taste wistful strings, romping rhythms, accordion waltzes and emotion as gossamer as it can be aching, all finished on the symphonic stove with memorable themes and melody, and you’ve got the musical cooking of Rachel Portman when given the kind of boisterous character canvases she excels at. Indeed, the musician who showed that women could make a film composing mark has never more stylistically scrumptious than serving up the persona of a fellow groundbreaker in a respectively wondrous field.
Read the full article from the Film Music Institute here.
Grammy Awards Taking Video Games Scores Seriously (Variety)
One of the biggest factors of any video game is its music, which, like film or TV composition, provides the engaging aspects of storytelling, but also supports the narrative, often in creative and daring spaces.
Adds Steve Schnur, worldwide executive and president of music for Electronic Arts: “The video game industry is now bigger than movies and music combined, its creative impact increasingly defining our global culture. Awarding a Grammy to a creative triumph in this medium would help ensure the Recording Academy’s credibility to next-gen entertainment. And if numerous Oscar, Emmy, BAFTA and Grammy-winning composers can embrace this visual medium with the same artistry and respect they’ve brought to film and television, then this is the year that the recording industry must do the same.”
Up for consideration are Hildur Guðnadóttir and Sam Slater for “Battlefield 2042.” Gudnadottir made Oscar history when she scooped up the Oscar for best original score. The win landed her in the history books for becoming the first female Oscar score winner in 23 years.
Last year, the video game industry was worth over $90 billion and players spent $4.5 billion on immersive gaming, making it one of the fastest-growing industries.
Read full Variety article here
Joshua Moshier's "The Shrink Next Door" Soundtrack (Deadline)
Moshier, who composed the main title music for Documentary Now! (IFC), also previously working on such series as Baskets (FX) and Special (Netflix), looked to be nimble with his latest score, reflecting the varying tones of a series that could turn on a dime from warm and lighthearted to disturbing and dark. He’d ultimately pen not only its full score, but also its main title theme.
“When I first began imagining the musical interior world of Marty and Ike, I created seven short musical vignettes to evoke the arc of their relationship,” says the composer. “Georgia Pritchett, Michael Showalter and the entire team were incredibly supportive of these ideas, and of using the score boldly to tell this story.
“Their trust was creatively liberating, and I felt free to let the music find its own sound,” Moshier adds, “one as lyrical and heartfelt but also as dark and tangled as the relationships portrayed. I’m grateful to them for bringing me along to be a part of this beautiful series.”
The first exclusive track from Joshua Moshier’s score for The Shrink Next Door, which is set for digital release via Lakeshore Records on November 12, as the first three episodes of the limited series become available for streaming on Apple TV+.
Lakeshore Records is the soundtrack arm of the Cutting Edge Group. The four-time Grammy-nominated record label has previously released the soundtracks for such acclaimed titles as Bridgerton, Drive, Stranger Things, The Old Guard, Cyberpunk 2077, When They See Us, The Handmaid’s Tale, Black Mirror, Star Trek: Picard, Bojack Horseman, Les Misérables, Mandy, Narcos, Logan, The Walking Dead, Napoleon Dynamite, Bill & Ted Face the Music, Red Dead Redemption 2, Legion, Lady Bird, Moonlight, Little Miss Sunshine, American Factory, If Beale Street Could Talk and The Hurt Locker, among many others.
Read the full article here.
Listen to the First Track From the Star Trek: Lower Decks Soundtrack (Star Trek)
The 53-track album, featuring an epic orchestrated original score by composer Chris Westlake (Castle Rock), will be available digitally October 8.
Relive some of your favorite Star Trek: Lower Decks moments with the Star Trek: Lower Decks Volume 1—Original Series Soundtrack, featuring music from the first and second season of the series, from Lakeshore Records.
Star Trek: Lower Decks streams exclusively in the United States and Latin America on Paramount+, on Amazon Prime Video in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Japan, India and more, and in Canada, airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave.
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