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John Williams' music for Michael Dukakis?


Thor

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He wrote a fanfare for him as well as music for the presidential coverage during the Atlanta Democratic meeting back in 1988.

There are quite a few clips from this event on youtube, and I've bored my way through them all -- but I haven't found any of his music. Only stuff like "Stars and Stripes Forever" (or whatever it's called) and other American anthems. And Williams' regular news music for NBC.

But no fanfare and no other music.

Has anyone heard this stuff?? Or has any more info?

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That's one of the things we're waiting for, actually. If King Mark never heard it then there are slim chances it is out there.

Now where is Miguel when you need him! :)

Karol

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As I'm a pretty hardcore collector myself, I think I'm pretty much up-to-date on other hardcore collector's JW collections too, but I've never met anyone who owns this. Not even Miguel or Markus Hable or anyone.

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I know Dukakis lost and everything, but the man has his own John Williams theme! Not a theme for a character he played in a film, like Harrison Ford, or Mark Hammil. Michael Dukakis has his own fanfare!

Why else has this, only Prince Philip, right?

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I'm looking at the piano reduction score as I write...

Wanna play it for us, like that guy on youtube did with Fanfare for Ten-Year-Olds? :)

I'm extremely curious about this cue!

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  • 3 months later...

Yeah, Thor, I can understand what you suffered through! I have been

scanning all existing youtube files of the Atlanta 1988 convention myself.

Without finding a note of Williams or at least a mention of the performance

itself.

"Fanfare for Michael", as it was called back then, must be about 2 1/2 min.

long. It was performed by a 35-piece orchestra and conducted by Boston

Pops assistant conductor laureate Harry Ellis Dickson, at the fourth and

last day of the National Democratic Convention in Atlanta, on Thursday,

July 21, 1988. It was performed just once, and served as a prelude to the

appearance of Dukakis in the final hours of the convention.

Which narrows down the period pretty well. Unfortunately, I couldn't find

it, yet. An amateur audio recording, if it existed, would have emerged in

the past 23 years, I suppose. But I can't imagine that NO CAMERA TEAM

on location was filming the thing. And if the speech was so super important,

it must have been aired on tv. And somebody must have taped that.

My educated guess is that the day we receive the VHS-crate from the estate

of Harry Ellis Dickson (who died in 2003, aged 94), and the very minute we

open that crate, it will contain just sand. And then all hell breaks loose and

we will all burn, shrink, melt and explode - just because we were so damn

snoopy.

Augie

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He, he...yeah.

I've heard a MIDI reduction for this now, but just as "Fanfare for 10-year-olds", I'd REALLY like to hear it in a full orchestral treatment, the way it's supposed to be heard.

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I just heard that there is a crisp, pristine orchestral copy out there.

Problem is: It's located inside a black hole.

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Well hopefully these last 2 fanfares will be re-recorded as part of compilation c.d.'s like we got recently for Fanfare for prince Philip

These are basically the 2 we never heard fully orchestrated

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I did some looking around recently to see if this had made it online, but no luck.

But I did find a little info from the NBC archives. Unfortunately, you have to register to access the video there, and you have to request it for business use, and all that stuff... but they at least provide info on the broadcast. Apparently the performance was followed by Olympia Dukakis' speech, a video, and then Michael Dukakis' speech (which is viewable at C-SPAN).

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I just heard that there is a crisp, pristine orchestral copy out there.

Problem is: It's located inside a black hole.

Yes, along with his symphony and STORIA DI UNA DONNA! :)

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  • 1 year later...

Go to the very end of this video (the Clinton speech at the 88 convention):

Could that be the beginning of the ever-elusive Williams fanfare playing up?

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Nope, that's not it. And I've heard that march before, in some other context.

On an unrelated note, is Arkansaw's flag based on the Confederacy's flag????

nunst005.gif

Rebel_Flag.jpg

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Yeah, I guess it was too much to hope for. Since they played "Chariots of Fire" in the opening, it was probably some other famous march at the end. Maybe Sousa.

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Yeah, I guess it was too much to hope for. Since they played "Chariots of Fire" in the opening, it was probably some other famous march at the end. Maybe Sousa.

It's Strike Up The Band by George Gershwin. Here's a snippet of the John Wilson Orchestra performing it at the Proms a couple of years ago:

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Damn, why is it so difficult to find the footage for that performance when there is so much from the Atlanta convention on Youtube?

Also, I was under the assumption that the fanfare was used for the TV coverage of the event (akin to his NBC music)....but that doesn't seem to be the case?

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Wow, excellent job Kendal! I cannot believe it was on CSPAN this entire time.

It wasn't. C-SPAN must have uploaded additional footage from the convention within the past year or so.
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Wow, excellent job Kendal! I cannot believe it was on CSPAN this entire time.

Well, I looked all over C-SPAN a while back. It must have been digitized since then.

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Hooray! Thank you so much, Kendall.

Now let's see if we can record it somehow (does it start midway in the piece?).

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I just realized that the link I found today and the one I posted a year ago point to the same clip. But I know when I posted it before, it was just the speech. Someone at C-SPAN must be looking out for us!

Now let's see if we can record it somehow (does it start midway in the piece?).

It does start abruptly, doesn't it? Sounds like it's still probably the beginning. Would've been nice to have the intro, but oh well. (I did check the ends of the other clips for it, but no dice.)

I see somebody already made a clip of the fanfare. Good for them, because for the life of me I couldn't get the clip thing to work. However, it looks like it cuts off the first couple seconds. But then when I preview it for MP3 download, it was fine. So I went through with the whole download process. A little tedious—iTunes it ain't. But once I got the MP3, I found out it does cut off those first few seconds. :(

I see I could contact them about it. Seems like a lot of trouble for 2 seconds.

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I just realized that the link I found today and the one I posted a year ago point to the same clip. But I know when I posted it before, it was just the speech. Someone at C-SPAN must be looking out for us!

Now let's see if we can record it somehow (does it start midway in the piece?).

It does start abruptly, doesn't it? Sounds like it's still probably the beginning. Would've been nice to have the intro, but oh well. (I did check the ends of the other clips for it, but no dice.)

I see somebody already made a clip of the fanfare. Good for them, because for the life of me I couldn't get the clip thing to work. However, it looks like it cuts off the first couple seconds. But then when I preview it for MP3 download, it was fine. So I went through with the whole download process. A little tedious—iTunes it ain't. But once I got the MP3, I found out it does cut off those first few seconds. :(

I see I could contact them about it. Seems like a lot of trouble for 2 seconds.

Funny enough, I emailed them last year when this thread was first posted to ask if they could upload the fanfare, and the response I got was basically "we've uploaded everything we have, search harder".

And that's my clip you found, unfortunately I couldn't find any way to start a clip right at 0:00.

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Wow Michael Dukakis must be hell of a guy to earn such a piece. :P

Enormous thank you Thor!

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Great find!! Thank you!!

There's another rendition of the theme with a faster tempo and different intro at the end of the convention (around 01:44:50). Unfortunately the voice-over blows our only chance of getting a clean recording of it.

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I really want to thank everyone involved finding this piece..! :)

I also have a problem downloading the file. If anyone could send it to me: much appreciated..!

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