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Posts posted by Hlao-roo
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In Tom Cruise's 1992 interview with Rolling Stone, the actor makes clear his respect for Williams and what he brings to the table:
Somewhere down the line, perhaps after getting critically drubbed on Cocktail (which Cruise admits "was not a crowning jewel"), the actor decided to exercise his considerable clout. "I try to put together the A team, the Super Bowl team," he says on a soundstage where he's spent the afternoon watching Far and Away composer John Williams set the images onscreen to music. It's a process most actors wouldn't bother to check in on. Cruise thumps his fist on a table. "I invest too much in my movies," he says. "I want it to be great every time." -
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https://www.sfcv.org/article/san-francisco-conservatory-of-music-president-goes-on-the-record
As for that new record label and its debut release, close to [san Francisco Conservatory of Music President David] Stull’s tubist heart, he notes that aside from [san Francisco] Symphony trombonist Tim Higgins’ resetting of a collection of [Giovanni] Gabrieli canzones, madrigals, and magnificats, the disc will include a brand new fanfare, Music for Brass, composed and donated by an enthusiastic John Williams. The Gabrieli material, debuted in performance at the Green Music Center in Sonoma last June, will join the Williams’ material in a roll-out of the new label at Symphony Hall in Chicago on September 20, under the baton of Riccardo Muti, with a possible tour of the National Brass Ensemble to follow. Stull will be there. And his so-far unnamed label will then set itself, he promises, to "projects that wouldn’t otherwise be produced because the economics don’t exist to support them."
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http://www.recordnet.com/article/20150408/ENTERTAINMENTLIFE/150409731/-1/A_BIZ
“Carmina Burana” is famous for its flexibility and adaptability. Many people never connected “The Lone Ranger” theme with Giacomo Rossini’s “William Tell Overture.” Hardly anyone would link Orff’s one-hit wonder with Ozzy Osbourne.
But the Black Sabbath co-founder used 63 seconds of Orff’s “O’Fortuna” as mood music prior to his shows and now on the Internet.
It’s been adapted for TV commercials and movies, including by John Williams for the first “Star Wars” “prequel.”
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I gotta get back to watching Louie again. I liked the first season but haven't seen it since.
People seem divided on whether the later seasons are richer/deeper or simply unfunny/pretentious, but I've personally grown to like the series more as it's progressed. The show didn't really click for me until the third season.
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Haha, this is great. (Louie hasn't actually had this opening sequence for awhile, but this still feels current with Season 5 around the corner.)
https://nerdist.com/star-wars-meets-louis-c-k-in-chewie/
(h/t The A.V. Club)
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"It seemed to me that Williams had ripped off Lois Lane's theme in 'Superman' from the transfiguration theme," Speck said. "There are only two notes' difference."
Please tell this Speck to just stop smoking weed.
His Twitter handle is @scottspeck1; you can tell him yourself.
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Without faulting Speck or the Press-Register, I suspect some of the nuances got lost in translation.
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“Musical Masterpieces” The U.S. Army Concert Band and Army Voices perform “An American Journey” from John Williams, the premiere of “Three Washington Statues” by Philip Sparke and music from “Les Miserables.” 7:30 p.m. Hylton Performing Arts Center, Merchant Hall, 10960 George Mason Cir., Manassas. 703-993-7759. www.hyltoncenter.org. Free.
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NP: Wolf Hall (Wiseman)
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And this gives him... intelligence? Wisdom?
Cachet.
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This Speck guy sounds like an idiot.
Scott Speck has been a regular commentator on National Public Radio, the BBC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and Voice of Russia, broadcast throughout the world. He has been featured in TED talks and at the Aspen Ideas Festival. His writing has been featured in numerous magazines and journals.
Born in Boston, Scott Speck graduated summa cum laude from Yale University. There he founded and directed the Berkeley Chamber Orchestra, which continues to perform to this day. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Berlin, where he founded Concerto Grosso Berlin, an orchestra dedicated to the performances of Baroque and Classical music in a historically informed style. He received his Master’s Degree with highest honors from the University of Southern California, served as a Conducting Fellow at the Aspen School of Music, and studied at the Tanglewood Music Center. He is fluent in English, German and French, has a diploma in Italian, speaks Spanish and has a reading knowledge of Russian.
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http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2015/04/star_wars_at_the_saenger.html
The Mobile Symphony Orchestra will play the soundtrack star's most memorable movie tunes at "The Music of John Williams," concert this Saturday and Sunday at The Saenger Theatre.
The show is going to be heavy on "Star Wars" music, so guys and gals are encouraged to dress like they're from a galaxy far far away. So proudly don your Darth Vader helmets and Princess Leia braid puffs, because Speck and the musicians want to look out an audience filled with aliens and more spacey specimens.
"One half of the concert is devoted to 'Star Wars.' We're playing music from all six movies," said Mobile Symphony Orchestra conductor and music director Scott Speck. "The second half of the concert is devoted to all the other famous soundtracks; "Jaws," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Superman," "Schindler's List," "Harry Potter, E.T.""In 'Star Wars' Williams uses the orchestra so well. The musicians asked for the music far in advance because they know its extraordinarily difficult to play. John Williams doesn't pull any punches," Speck said. "He knows what sounds he wants, and he knows how the great composers of the past, like Richard Strauss, got them. The horns and trumpets especially, have a workout in this concert. All the brass, trombones and tubas have long periods where they're playing fanfares and melodies that really call on them to play at the highest level."
Speck said "Across" is his favorite piece of music from the prequel trilogy.
"It perfectly combines the feelings of passionate attraction between Padme and Anakin, and tragedy, because you know its going to be a tragic end," he said. "It's a very long, flowing melody that is mostly played by the strings, and the whole orchestra plays when it rises to its climax."If you were worried about getting Jar Jar Binks flashbacks at the show, you can relax. Speck is not a fan of the grating character or his accompanying music.
"Jar Jar does have a theme, but were not playing it," Speck said. "It's my least favorite."
Speck said all the "Star Wars" soundtrack installments so far show an impressive continuity, despite the fact that Williams started them in the 1970s and is still fashioning them forty years later.
"He managed to stay remarkably true to the original style of 'Star Wars." When he went back again and again into that world, he stuck with the same sound world. It's all in the same vein, and its all in the same style" Speck said. "What's different is the themes. One of the reasons we love 'Star Wars' is not just the brassy triumphant momentous sound of the music, but the characters' themes."Williams has written many different scores in many different styles, but he's particularly drawn to Wagnerian drama.
"Williams is an amazing chameleon. In the case of "Jaws," he sort of invented his own sound, and in "Catch Me If You Can" he has a jazz solo; but most of his scores are in the grand late romantic Germanic orchestra tradition," Speck said.
That means in addition to Wagner, Williams also takes cues from 19th and 20th century German composers Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler.
Speck said the famous Flying Theme from "E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial," which evoked images of E.T. and Elliott bicyling across the face of the moon, is heavily influenced by Mahler's Ninth Symphony.
Strauss was also a champion of the leitmotif, and he used the device in his symphonic poems. Coincidentally, the MSO's last concert featured the Strauss tone poem "Death and Transfiguration," and Speck detected some very Williams-ish sounds in Strauss' stirring musical mortality play.
"It seemed to me that Williams had ripped off Lois Lane's theme in 'Superman' from the transfiguration theme," Speck said. "There are only two notes' difference."
In Williams' other soundtracks, references to Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky and Giacomo Puccini are also present. Audiences at Mobile Opera's recent performance of Puccini's "Manon Lescaut" were surprised to hear music very similar to the main "Star Wars" theme in the score.
Williams does have a tendency to emulate and borrow, but he's still an American original with an unquantifiable influence on the music world and our collective pop culture consciousness. -
Chappie (Zimmer)
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I'd welcome a new Muppet Show.
Maybe they'll finally release the rest of the seasons on DVD.
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It's being reported that Bruce Broughton has let it slip that #JohnWilliams is going to do all his own orchestrations on #StarWarsVII.
— Doug Adams (@DougAdamsMusic)
April 2, 2015Any particular reason that Broughton would have knowledge of this?
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Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (Folk) *** - A quintessentially lush mid-'90s action-adventure score that knows nothing of the Media Ventures dominance to come
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Didn't really notice it in the film. Probably a good thing.
Perhaps you were too busy wondering how many guys in the theater were having an erection?
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Great show.
Modern Family or Last Week Tonight with John Oliver?
Sabrina Goes To Rome.
I disagree.
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Great show.
Modern Family or Last Week Tonight with John Oliver?
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Personally, I think it looks rather cheesy and superficial from the trailer alone (and very "American"), but I'm impressed by the interview objects they've been able to secure. As someone who also relies on attractive interview objects, I'm totally envious (especially about Zimmer and Elfman). It will be interesting to follow the development of this.
What are "attractive interview objects"?
I do suspect the September 2004 features on film music from BFI's Sight and Sound will prove to be more interesting than what ultimately comes out of this project.
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Since when is Zimmer scoring The Little Prince? Wow.
Could be interesting. I like Portman's take for what it is, but something a bit more off-beat might be more in keeping with the tone and spirit of Saint-Exupéry's tale. Burwell would've been terrific.
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Animal Farm (Harvey) ****½ - Yet another superlative score in one of the greatest years for film music ever.
All the Little Animals (Hartley) ***½ - Begins in a folksy, bucolic manner, by turns playful and ruminative, before reaching for sustained, organ-laden horror in its final cues. Some lovely writing for solo winds, guitar, piano. A carefully considered score, nothing slick here. If you know Hartley only by Sheena, might be an eye-opener.
Williams orchestrating The Force Awakens himself?
in JOHN WILLIAMS
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Agreed. For trustworthy information on John Williams, Jeff Eldridge's site has long been the authoritative source. JWFAN has made strides in papering over its image as a distributor of unauthorized material, but for me its seedy origins have cast a persistent pall over anything and everything it's put out since.