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I went to watch the LSO just yesterday at the Barbican, playing Richard Strauss's Alpensinfonie amongst other things. There were five members of the orchestra actually performing yesterday who have been in the LSO for 35 years or more and therefore might have played on Return of the Jedi and possibly even The Empire Strikes Back (I cannot say for certain only because I have never seen player listings for either of those scores). The current longest-serving LSO member is first violin Colin Renwick, who I know definitely played on Raiders of the Lost Ark because his name is listed in the booklet. The next longest-serving member is sub-leader Lennox Mackenzie, who joined the LSO in 1980 and shared the front desk yesterday with leader Roman Simovic. Two of the cellists have also been with the LSO since the early 1980s, Jennifer Brown and Noel Bradshaw, as has double bass player Patrick Laurence. All five were playing in yesterday evening's concert. Another long-serving violinist, Nigel Broadbent, retired only recently. With regard to the Star Wars prequel scores, roughly thirty-five or so of the LSO members have been with the orchestra for twenty years or more and would therefore have played for John Williams on all three of those scores in all likelihood. Make no mistake, John Williams will recognise a significant number of the LSO musicians when he comes to conduct the orchestra in October, god willing. I am happy to list some more of them if anyone is interested. EDIT: I took this photo yesterday. Lennox Mackenzie is the gentleman immediately to the left of conductor Daniel Harding on the podium. Noel Bradshaw is the cellist with the white hair a couple behind him, while Jennifer Brown is the cellist with the short hair just to the left of him and slightly further forward.

Here's some more WIP from me: http://picosong.com/wkwYN/ It's basically part of this exercise that I'm doing where I'm trying to write a JW-style piece with the structure of a TESB/ROTJ third act finale (i.e. "final battle" music). So you have a main character trapped in some face-off situation whilst a battle is raging outside, and the film keeps switching between the two. I plan to make the whole thing 7-8 mins long so it's only about halfway done, but I thought I'd post what I have done now since I won't be returning to this piece for a long time...I have exams coming up and after that I wanted to do some more personal composition over the summer, so it will be a LONG time before I return to work on this (maybe for the better). Anyway, hope you enjoy and I would be eager to hear any comments!

If anyone is interested, here is a short article that was written for the "British Trombone Society", with interview comments from the original LSO trombone section that recorded the score back in 1977.

And it was also really really shitty so that instantly disqualifies it.

But every orchestra has flubs. Except maybe for London Synthony Orchestra. Karol

Black Panther by Ludwig Goransson Some real good stuff here. A nice cocktail of Power of One and The Lion King meets your usual modern blockbuster fare. It might not boast the most memorable themes, but it makes up for it in its sheer energy and colour. Gorannsson uses talking drums, African percussive elements and various ethnic chants (one for the female warriors being particularly effective) to great effect. There is even some decent woodwind writing here, with the occasional Horner-esque contouring. As for the danger motif, it's fun hearing it against an 808. The action music is not always great, but there are some real moments here, especially when he amps up the 90s style Zimmer melodrama (think "Ancestral Plane"). A shorter album would probably serve the score well. In the end, it's probably the most distinctive Marvel, or even mainstream blockbuster score in some time. Goransson is clearly someone to look out for. Black Gold by James Horner This is just really solid film scoring. Nothing, from themes to action material, is particularly new or special. But given that I haven't played some good ol' Horner in some time, the craft and apparent sensibilities of an older generation composer here really hit me. I miss the guy.

THE WRONG TROUSERS is a genuine classic.

Because it's the frickin' LSO, and it's the original orchestra used on some of his best scores.

Who could forget this classic shit:

Was going through Jim titus’ profile on behance (adobe social network for designers) and found these two articles he put together for his work on both: TMP 3 cd release https://www.behance.net/gallery/13102945/Star-Trek-The-Motion-Picture and the vinyl release https://www.behance.net/gallery/56339157/Star-Trek-The-Motion-Picture-Vinyl-Album-Cover-Art intersting stuff from one of the best designers working in our beloved hobby!

Another one on eBay for those interested. https://m.ebay.com/itm/STAR-WARS-LAST-JEDI-ACADEMY-PROMO-For-Your-Consideration-JOHN-WILLIAMS-CD-FYC/202232205910?hash=item2f15fa9256:g:t7EAAOSw1jhaiPFx

Ed Wood only did one. Okay and cut! Perfect! Print it! Filmmaking isn't about the finer details. It's about the big picture.

Movies aren’t supposed to recreate the book. They are supposed to hold the contour of the plot at its most basic form; the main cast of characters; the tone, style of dialogue and themes of the work. With regards to anything beyond that - it should be treated as an original screenplay, and to hell with the source material. Faithful adaptations honor the source material by being good movies, not by slavishly following the book. Hell, you can even re-interperate and re-imagine the novel entirely when you film it, rather than just adapting it.

After watching the video again, :35 sounds like music from Luke and Kylo’s “fight.”

This cutie is now a man, great album!

I like the bits in Star Wars where there's the yellow writing at the beginning.

Are they really any better in the new movies or just boring? At least you can be cheeky with prequel quotes.

But he was faster and more intense in SW...

So you mean to say that he was better in the film with the director who does rehearsals with the actors, talks them through the scene and takes 20-30 takes until he gets the performance just right, compared to the film with a director who couldn’t bother with rehearsals or taking more than 3-4 takes? What a shock!

Thank you for that kind offer, but I bought the VS in 1990 (and on vinyl, in 1978 ).

Oh, that's a long way to go. Maybe I should just shut up and fly to Boston ;-)

By mistake wrote the abbreviation of my local orchestra, Trondheim Symphony Orchestra. A very skilled orchestra!

It's not ridiculous if it's on your bucket list... Try 12.5 hours to London or 16 hours to Boston, in my case. Not to mention the cost. Yes, the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, perhaps you've heard of them?

Flight to Neverland from Hook Excerpts from Close Encounters of the Third Kind Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Marion’s Theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark The Raiders March from Raiders of the Lost Ark A New Beginning from Minority Report Adventures on Earth from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial INTERMISSION Harry’s Wondrous World from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone A Child’s Tale – Suite from The BFG Out to Sea / The Shark Cage Fugue from Jaws Theme From Schindler’s List The Rebellion Is Reborn from Star Wars: The Last Jedi The Throne Room & Finale from Star Wars ENCORES Han Solo and the Princess from The Empire Strikes Back (New Arrangement) The Imperial March from The Empire Strikes Back http://www.jwfan.com/?p=10559

First excerpt: The two almost-identical markings are the mezzo-forte "mf" dynamic marking. The other marking I think is "IIIo" which means that the bottom staff is played by the third trombone only. Second excerpt: Top-left is a tie mark, in the Hal Leonard scores you often see it accompanied with the phrase: "let ring" on harp, to make it clear that no specific damping is needed. The rest are just a quarter-note rest and a half-note rest with a fermata over it. Third excerpt: It's a tenor clef. Second-from-top line of the stave is a middle C. I'm not sure where you are seeing a trombone glissando in Ex 1 or 2 though?

Congrats to Desplat for the win.

The Magnificent Seven by Elmer Bernstein: A classic. The re-recording by James Sedares and the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra is quite excellent and the Hallelujah Trail Overture is a nice bonus at the end of the disc. Seven Years in Tibet by John Williams: As gorgeous as ever.

Twice the pride, double the fall. *proceeds to get two hands cut off in a duel*

Anyone else like the look of those spiky heat sinks on the external chassis of high quality power amplifiers? As if they're built for destruction?

Well done to Alexandre Desplat! Hope he can nab the Oscar now too!

1. Avatar 2. Apollo 13 3. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan 4. The Amazing Spider-Man 5. Titanic Never been much of a Horner junkie. His music never appealed to me the way Williams or Goldsmith's does.

Yes, he needs to play Heartbeeps.

Use the Force!

Black Panther Found this rather boring to be honest. Decent but nothing that really takes much risks, despite what the reviews have you think. Sure, if you want black representation then this is the movie for you, but beyond that there is nothing fresh in this tale. World building? Wakanda is boring. A few passing shots of magnetic trains and village life don't pass for world building. The actor who plays Black Panther utterly lacks charisma, which Michael B. Jordan has in spades. A Marvel villain who is straight up gangsta, yo. I remember him as skinny ass and sympathetic Wallace from The Wire. How he's grown. Damn. The movie is also a reminder that Andy Serkis should appear more in live action rather than just motion capture. Two of the more fun villains from Marvel so far. The rest of the move is run of the mill. I liked the Korea sequence. Very obvious nod to James Bond, but it just about worked. The car chase sequence after that was quite cool too, not something we usually see from Marvel. The climatic fight is garbage though, set in the dullest backdrop you could imagine Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri I didn't expect the film to be quite this chaotic, both in events that unfold and it's themes. I expected something a lot more straightforward. I liked it though -- a film that really peels away the layers to its characters without really re-branding them in the process. You don't learn much that is new with the characters by the end, but you feel you've somehow lived with them for a bit. Acting from MacDormand, Rockwell, and Harrelson is great. Has nothing on In Bruges though. To be fair that's one of my favourite films of all time. Lady Bird Oh this was fantastic. Perfectly paced, perfectly acted, perfectly written, and assuredly directed. It feels natural and honest, and part of it is because of Saoirse Ronan's performance. Not the typical coming-of-age movie that ends up feeling sickly. This one manages to be reminiscent of adolescence and not overstay it's welcome.

I don't remember, and the IOC is as strict as ever about protecting its copyright, but here's another (better) performance from the same pair:

Just knowing this might be on the TLJ recording sessions and is going to rot inside a vault for the next 30 years makes me sick

These are rescored sequences using the intended score, largely dropped from the final film. TITANIC Theatrical Trailer: This took a bit of time to make to isolate the dialogue, and I ended up replacing some of it with lines from the final film. This is the theatrical trailer with the originally intended music as provided on the LLL set. The trailer's music was edited down, looped and the second half replaced with cues from "Courage Under Fire". This restores the original track as written. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OoonPxiJChscolkDNDYOlRgx-99bW5P_/view?usp=sharing TITANIC - Leaving Port: There's a small amount of dialogue to introduce the sequence, but this is what the original intention for this scene was meant to be. The ending of it does not fully synchronize with the visual, because that would've required slowing part of the film down to make it fit. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pNGaWyqdxivf-U5RVkg_w95UTdWsOQ_V

He'll do it via fax.

Williams is trolling us and he and Brian Tyler have secretly switched concerts. Tyler's the night before is actually Williams and at the Albert Hall is secretly a Tyler concert. "Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome to the stage... " *huge anticipation builds* "Brian Tyler!"

For me, it's definitely the love theme from R&J.

Williams's original title was "Han Solo (and the Princess)," which would have made it very clear.

Ugh why did Jim feed JW the same boring line about writing with pencil and paper? JW's spoken on this subject so many times already. Edit: JW pretty much confirmed that he wants Ep 9 to be his last SW score. He said "9 will be quite enough for me, and Disney will probably want to take it further." And JW doesn't believe what Kylo Ren said about Rey's parents. He hopes Ep 9 will reveal who her parents really are.

Weight and stakes are fine, but at the cost of fun, soul, continuity and basic visibility? (OK, those last two are not really directly connected to it but most of my memories of the last 3 are how I couldn't differentiate Harry' face from his robes or the wall - and that bloody Burrow burning, it added stakes all right, only to take all of it away when it's all fine and rebuilt in the next one!)

The Force Theme quote in Battle of the Heroes makes perfect sense, even in the concert suite. It is, after all, a duel between the two protagonists where the force plays a prevalent part.

Same here!

The score (and film in some ways) reminded me of ROTS from my first listen, mostly in the sheer forward momentum and wall-to-wall-ness. But I like TLJ much, much more