Alison Smith
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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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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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.
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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.
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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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Tracks From The Morning Show Soundtrack By Carter Burwell (Slashfilm)
“The Morning Show” is just ramping up its second season on AppleTV+, and…one aspect of it that has been consistently good is Carter Burwell’s score.
The famed composer has been churning out excellent work since the mid-1980s, working with acclaimed filmmakers like the Coen Brothers, David Mamet, Spike Jonze, Todd Haynes, and Martin McDonagh, among others. After working on a couple of limited series, Burwell recently started scoring full-on TV shows like “Space Force” and, of course, “The Morning Show.”
There's a good mixture of emotions here, too, transitioning from ominous to almost spiritual to uplifting, and then finally back toward ominous again. The official press release describes the sound like this: "Burwell's urbane keyboard-based score enhances the daily dramas illustrated in the award-winning series."
“When I worked on the first season of ‘The Morning Show’ I had no experience with episodic television and kept trying to fit it to my understanding of film structure (beginning, middle, and end),” Burwell said in a statement. “This time around I was able to loosen my approach and view each episode as its own emotional experience with its own rationale and style. Also, because the themes already existed, the score has a self-awareness that’s different than the first season, when it was finding itself. Does this mirror what’s happening with the characters or story? I don’t know…”
Lakeshore Records will release “The Morning Show” season 2 soundtrack digitally on October 1, 2021.
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Interview with Wolfboy Composer Xav Clarke (ComingSoon)
Apple TV+’s new series Wolfboy and the Everything Factory is now streaming and follows an oddball dreamer named Wolfboy as he discovers a strange realm where fantastical beings create things for the natural world above.
To score the series, composer Xav Clarke (Elliot From Earth, The Amazing World of Gumball) was given the brief to “go weird, be experimental, and take chances.” What he created is an organic score as playful, curious, and creative as the titular character himself. His music has a purposeful roughness to it in keeping with the creative mantra to make it sound as if Wolfboy could have made the music himself in the Everything Factory!
"I’m so excited to have the release through Lakeshore Records and to have somewhere for people to go, outside of the show, where they can be reminded of the world of Wolfboy and feel transported there."
Your music is at times playful and fun, but also surprisingly dramatic and reflective in tracks such as “I Knew It!” and “Memory Books.” How much freedom did you have with this particular score — and what was your overall approach?
I’m very nostalgic and reflective in general and I love to try and channel feelings I have about the past into my music. The warmth and comfort/sadness of memories that you can’t put your arms around, this show seemed to touch on so many themes I love. I had more freedom with the score than on any project I’ve worked on before. I’m very grateful to the amazing executive producers and team at Apple who always encouraged me to be as unusual and experimental as I could. After all, the show is mostly set in a world none of us have ever been to before, so how could we know what that would sound like? It was an amazing blank slate to have. The overall approach derived from the idea that the music should sound like Wolfboy could have made it himself. Show creator Toff Mazery told me that that’s how he imagined the music to sound, very crafty and warm. It was such a joy and as well to work with his amazing theme he wrote for Wolfboy’s Mum. That theme is the basis of the cue “I Knew It!!!” and “The Piano,” and it pops up throughout the score at lots of crucial moments. Toff is also a brilliant musician!
Were there instruments or equipment utilized for this score that you had never worked with before?
The only rule for this show was stay away from any cold digital-sounding things! Beware of the synth!
So I ended up making samples of a lot of my instruments and twisting them through effects pedals and stretching them around here and there.
I used the tapping of the pads on my flute as a percussion quite alot! Pitching them down. Also, my voice, I used for so many moments in the score, which I’d never had the luxury of featuring so prominently before.
What is the most challenging aspect of scoring an animated series?
Probably the time frame, keeping to the schedules. It takes some seriously good time management!
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Cutting Edge Group Acquires Soundtrack Label Lakeshore Records (Variety)
Cutting Edge, a leading music financier and services provider for film, TV and advertising, has acquired Lakeshore Records, a top independent soundtrack label.
Their partnership will provide Cutting Edge with an in-house label, while Lakeshore will continue to operate as an independent, doing albums for such high-profile projects as “Marriage Story,” “Moonlight,” “Stranger Things” and “Narcos.”
The core business of Cutting Edge is investing in the music side of films, providing production companies with extra capital for their music budgets in return for acquiring master and publishing rights for the original music. In addition, Cutting Edge has publishing, royalty and licensing departments and, according to Finegan, is “looking at ‘live’ as a possible area for our business,” referring to the current trend of live-to-picture concerts.
Says Lakeshore Records President Brian McNelis: “The combining of Cutting Edge and Lakeshore is an extension of the business that we had already been in. We had a working relationship and they were looking to complement their other services.” Lakeshore had been licensing albums from Cutting Edge as far back as 2005, and in 2016 Cutting Edge acquired Lakeshore’s publishing assets and associated masters.
Cutting Edge COO Tara Finegan cites Lakeshore’s “intensity and passion and desire to get things absolutely right for the fans of soundtrack music, and for the composers and filmmakers who are on the other side, creating this art.”
Cutting Edge has been without a “home” label since Concord Music acquired venerable soundtrack label Varèse Sarabande from Cutting Edge’s investor group Film Score Records in 2018.
Finegan praised McNelis as “prescient in thinking about the soundtrack marketplace, and continually pivoting and expanding what the marketplace is. It’s been a very long partnership that’s evolved over time.”
Lakeshore Records provides Cutting Edge with an in-house label and, says Finegan, “expands what we do to all of the relationships and partners that Lakeshore is already working with — Netflix, Apple, all across the board. … The Lakeshore business is going to stay the same in the sense that it is its own operating business unit within the group,” she adds. “Brian has the autonomy to make whatever decisions and deals he wants. We wanted to bring him into our orbit and give him more resources to go out and do what he does best.”
Read full Variety article here
12on12 Music Series Lines Up YG, Steve Aoki, Vince Staples for Interviews at ComplexCon
“12on12,” a new episodic series hosted by nationally syndicated radio personality Elvis Duran, will be on hand for ComplexCon in Long Beach, Calif. this weekend. Among the artists participating in interviews conducted by Duran are YG, Steve Aoki and Vince Staples, Executive Producer Steven Levine confirms.
The concept of the Cutting Edge Group’s “12on12” centers around the musical DNA of an act...exploring the genesis of a musician’s evolution through the examination of twelve songs that mean the most to them.
The show will create a musical road map with each song — from the first time an artist heard a song, their first concert, a song that inspired them or something that they sang with their parents — as Duran weaves a tale throughout the interview. Each show will also feature surprise guests, performances and interactions with each act – Demi Lovato, Nick Jonas, Sam Smith, Logic, Niall Horan and Fallout Boy are already in the mix — presented with a customized vinyl record of “twelve seminal songs,” complete with customized artwork.
The “vinylworks” will also be be on display, much like the 12on12 collaboration earlier this year with rapper Travis Scott (music curation) and luxury French brand Saint Laurent (product design).
In addition, 12on12’s upcoming record release, which includes artwork by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami and a curated soundtrack of previous ComplexCon performers like Kid Cudi, Skrillex, 21 Savage and N.E.R.D., will be sold exclusively at ComplexCon.
Read full Variety article here