Bayesian

Whoever gets the gig, we must keep in mind that it was someone who got Williams' trust. So even if it is an unknown composer, he or she will be working with a brand new John Williams Star Wars theme - something only Powell has achieved for now. That's a hell of an accomplishment, whether you're a novice or a veteran.

I have emailed the box office this morning on seeing this news here about buying tickets under the subscription. No news yet, but will post here if I hear anything. If anyone has news on this please share. I have missed (for various reasons seeing the Maestro in Europe having only ever secured tickets once for his cancelled concert in Vienna) and I am quite desperate to see him. 

It is also easier to get a piano onto a private jet.  

"Let the hate flow through you" 

This cue ("Obituary" from The French Dispatch) is so, so good: 
 
 
Love how the melody so naturally passes between the different instruments.  Definitely in the running for the best cue of 2021 in my book. Shame the rest of the score didn't really do much for me. Desplat is in some ways a very frustrating composer to me -- at his best, he is probably my favorite currently-working composer (other than Williams of course), but he can also write entire scores that I find hard to listen to. He is undoubtedly a masterful composer -- his precise orchestrations, delicate rhythms, and gorgeous melodies make his music perhaps the most romantic being composed today, in my view. Little Women from 2019 is probably my all-time favorite Desplat score (and one of my favorite scores by any composer other than Williams) -- every cue is so elegant. I hope he is able to return to that style in a future score -- although obviously Desplat in other modes does still yield some gems (like "Obituary" above!).

From what my sources tell me, Williams was so incensed by Ma's interruption that he insisted the album be called "A Gathering of Friends (and Yo Yo Ma)."  

It's played really beautifully. By the way, creating an arrangement for solo cello of Schindler's List for Yo-Yo Ma was an idea Williams expressed during an interview back in 1994, right after he wrote the Cello Concerto for him. Interestingly, in that interview he also said that he was planning to record his Cello Concerto and the Korngold one with Yo-Yo for the same album.
 
The actual arrangement was done I think in 2001 and it was likely planned as part of the sessions with Ma and the LA studio orchestra for the Sony album released in 2002, but alas it was never recorded (or at least never released). It officially premiered in 2017 in a concert with the Cincinnati Pops conducted by John Morris Russell and then recorded by the LSO for their 2018 album "John Williams - A Life In Music". Hal Leonard also published the sheet music (both for orchestra and the reduction for cello and piano) around the same time.
 
It's interesting that JW went back and re-arranged the whole 3-movement suite for Yo-Yo.

Here we go  
 
 
And the album is called 'A Gathering of Friends'. Release date 20/05/2022
https://www.amazon.co.jp/Gathering-Friends-John-Williams/dp/B09TWRQ6DT

@May the Force be with You
 

I am so f***ing going to this. Thank you for alerting us; l don't think I'd ever have learned about it until after all the tickets had sold. (Tix aren't actually being sold to this concert yet, but I'll be there when they do.)

USA premiere of his Cello Concerto:
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor
Gautier Capuçon, cello
November 11, 12, 13, 2022
https://www.sfsymphony.org/Buy-Tickets/2022-23/Capucon-Plays-Danny-Elfman

New interview: https://tapeop.com/interviews/148/danny-elfman/
 
An interesting tidbit or two:
 
"After 110 films, or whatever it’s been, one of the only two times I feel I collaborated with anybody – between the score and the songs – was with Elliott on Good Will Hunting and with Tyler, The Creator on The Grinch. Everything else has been totally separate and removed."
 
"Coachella had been trying to get me to put together an Oingo Boingo reunion for years. I’m so sorry, but it’s never going to happen."

I can't wait to change my answer to whatever 5 tracks make up the last 20 minutes of Mike's restoration of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

I would disagree that he wasn't good at comedy. Moonlighting is how he got his big break, and the light touch he gives John McClane is what made Die Hard such a success. His greatest pure comedic performance is probably Death Becomes Her.

I believe the scientology rumour has been debunked several times by the Smiths. I was tempted to blame the incident on that too, but appears it's not true. Will Smith is a baptist. The only thing to blame here is a total mental breakdown.

That was a beautiful and heartfelt speech and you could tell Spielberg was clearly quite touched by it. 

After JW, Danny Elfman is by far the film composer I most dearly want to compose "classical" works. Considering the demoralizingly barren wasteland that Hollywood film scoring seems to be irretrievably turning into, I'd love it if Elfman one day decided to live off his existing royalties and go the JW route, scoring only Tim Burton's films and focusing on the far more fertile classical scene.

That was a beautiful and heartfelt speech and you could tell Spielberg was clearly quite touched by it. 

Keep that man's name out of your fucking mouth.

If this thing blows over for Will Smith, it'll be in large part because of Chris Rock's class act response -- rolling with the punch (literally) and not making any kind of reaction to it (which, incidentally, allowed people to originally wonder if it was all being staged), managing to crack a joke to break the tension even after the show's producers did nothing, and then publicly stating he wouldn't press charges. Rock will come out the winner here, I feel, even if his joke was in poor taste. Which it was.

Smith shoulda slapped whoever was responsible for deciding NTTD deserved Best Song. 

If this thing blows over for Will Smith, it'll be in large part because of Chris Rock's class act response -- rolling with the punch (literally) and not making any kind of reaction to it (which, incidentally, allowed people to originally wonder if it was all being staged), managing to crack a joke to break the tension even after the show's producers did nothing, and then publicly stating he wouldn't press charges. Rock will come out the winner here, I feel, even if his joke was in poor taste. Which it was.

If this thing blows over for Will Smith, it'll be in large part because of Chris Rock's class act response -- rolling with the punch (literally) and not making any kind of reaction to it (which, incidentally, allowed people to originally wonder if it was all being staged), managing to crack a joke to break the tension even after the show's producers did nothing, and then publicly stating he wouldn't press charges. Rock will come out the winner here, I feel, even if his joke was in poor taste. Which it was.