-
Posts
15 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Nils
-
-
- Popular Post
- Popular Post
Here are links to recordings of our “world premiere” live performances of “Hassle in the Castle” and “Mambone”, as well as the SCHINDLER’S LIST pieces and “Duel of the Fates”. As Thor mentioned, the sound quality is not terrific, and the balance is a bit off here and there.And PLEASE NOTE: We are not the LSO, VPO, or Hollywood studio musicians – just a bunch of people playing an instrument in our spare time. Please keep that in mind when you listen. There IS some shaky stuff in there.
“Hassle in the Castle”:“Mambone”:“Jewish Town”/”Theme” from SCHINDLER’S LIST (violin: Aja Humm):“Duel of the Fates” (this is a shorter version than the original, and with some noticeable differences in the instrumentation – for instance, there is a very prominent snare drum part): -
2 hours ago, Biodome said:
It's so cool that you had a choir! I wonder how pieces like Duel of the Fates sounded. I've only ever heard the instrumental arrangements of that.
Actually, for that piece we combined the parts from the purely instrumental concert band version with the choral parts from the orchestral version.
-
- Popular Post
- Popular Post
Thank you, Thor, for doing an amazing job hosting our show!
(I was the one who hired Thor, so I’m at least partially responsible for him having to skip the Vienna event, which was announced after our concert date was set. Sorry, Thor!)
Your presentations were excellent, with just the right length and a great mix of interesting, relevant information and fun facts. People from the audience have told me they would have liked to meet you after the concert to congratulate you on your job and tell you how your introductions really enhanced the concert experience for them. Kudos!
Cool also that you joined us for the after-concert party.
It was exhilarating to perform a full concert of my favorite composer’s music, and playing the never-before-performed-live (as far as we know) "Hassle in the Castle" and "Mambone" was a blast! Of course, we’re only non-professionals, so there were some rough spots – performing a two hour concert with some quite difficult symphonic music is a challenge!
The selections with the (really excellent) Skala Opera Choir were definitely some of the high points. They were located on two high balconies on each side of the hall, which gave the choir pieces a marvelous, majestic “surround” sound. As a 12 year-old in the audience commented on "Duel of the Fates": "That was epic!"
Yes, we did both audio and video recordings of the event. I’ll check with the guys responsible for the recordings – hopefully we can post some of it here later.
19 hours ago, Stefancos said:Were these licensed arrangements or was the concert essentially a performance of unauthorized material?
Apart from the specially commissioned "Hassle in the Castle" and "Mambone" arrangements, everything we played were published, licensed versions, many from the Williams “Signature Edition” series for concert band. And we report what we play to the Norwegian performance rights organization (TONO).
-
On 1/22/2020 at 12:53 PM, eitam said:
I have to say, I thought he looked his age, physically frail.Though that didn't seem to reflect in any way on the quality and energy of his conducting.
On 1/22/2020 at 1:31 PM, crocodile said:Well, at this age his legs won't be as stable so can't exactly prance around the stage. But he looked fine.
Yeah, I guess his walk isn't exactly sprightly. But his arms and upper body are probably in much better shape than his legs. 60 years of conducting will do that to you!.
-
- Popular Post
It's been great reading about how people had such a wonderful time in Vienna. Congratulations to eveyone who attended!
Also, it's heartening to see that Williams apparently is in great shape. I had assumed he no longer conducts whole concerts, as he's mostly done only second halves lately. And here he conducts for two and a half hours straight, two days in a row! Amazing and very uplifting!
-
6 hours ago, Þekþiþm said:
No, it's an effective way to identify viewpoints that are fundamentally more censorious than your own.
Sometimes, yes, like in the case of the article at hand, which I wouldn't hesitate to call "politically correct" myself. But way too often, it's being used only to invalidate an opposing opinion.
-
I generally detest it when something is labeled «Politically Correct», because usually that’s just a cheap way of denigrating an opinion that happens to be more liberal than your own. But jeez... if something ever deserved the label, it’s got to be that article.
I’m astonished at how badly researched it is (as others here have pointed out through plenty of examples).
-
-
-
Hmm, am I the only one here who hasn't heard about Saariaho, Birtwistle or Knussen?
But I guess these are guys worth checking out, then...
-
By ear. Fortunately, the CD tracks have excellent sound quality (especially Hassle in the Castle), so it shouldn't be a problem.
-
1 hour ago, Miguel Andrade said:
That should be really fun to hear
Yeah, I'm so looking forward to playing those (though as these are basically big band numbers and I play the clarinet, I probably won't get the coolest parts
)
We wanted to cover some of the lesser known, early part of Williams career, and as these are two of my favorite tracks from that period, I suggested them, and the rest of the band's music committee agreed that these were good choices. Norwegian film composer Knut Avenstroup Haugen is currently working on the arrangements.
(sorry to have derailed the thread's topic a bit, so with that in mind: I wish everyone going to the Vienna concert a terrific experience! Would have loved to be there, too.
)
-
22 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:
Welcome, Nils! I guess it was too boring over at FSM...
Thanks, Sigbjørn!
Well, some variation will be nice, at least.
-
Hello folks - my first post here
On 10/22/2019 at 3:47 PM, Thor said:But regardless of all of that, here's my bizarre situation for this that I thought I'd share:
On the evening of Saturday, January 18th, I'm the on-stage host for a John Williams concert with the Lørenskog marching band. Lørenskog is a suburb to Oslo, so it sounds small, but their marching band is one of the best in all of Norway. They've often won the Norwegian championships. They're already preparing an exciting programme of familiar and unfamiliar JW pieces (some of which have never been performed live before), and I was hired several months back, with a decent and much-needed pay. There's no way I can cancel it. So I have this weird situation where a John Williams-related event is cancelling out the chance to see the actual John Williams live!
Yeah well, Thor, I actually feel a little bad now for asking you to host our concert, as it turns out it collides with other things for you left and right - not only the Vienna Williams concert, but also the Tromsø International Film Festival, which you graciously agreed to leave early to host our show. And I would probably have gone to Vienna too, if I hadn’t been performing Williams’ music myself at exactly the same time.
But we’re really grateful for having Norway’s foremost Williams’ expert as our host! And I hope you are as excited as I am to have stuff like “Hassle in the Castle” from Checkmate and “Mambone” from Bachelor Flat performed live.
(By the way, we haven’t actually ever won the Norwegian Championships - maybe you’re confusing us with Lillestrøm, only a few miles away, who win every other year or so. But we do participate in the upper divisions, so on a good day, we sound decent, too! And we like to call ourselves a concert band, not a marching band – we usually march only once a year, on National Day).
- Biodome and Jurassic Shark
-
2
2021 JWFan Composition Competition: Poll
in General Discussion
Posted
Thanks for the heads-up. My vote went to Josh. Wow!