Film Score Friday 10/12/01

Candyman is finally getting released, as the inaugural release of Philip Glass' new label, Orange Mountain Music, distributed worldwide solely by amazon.com. The CD will feature the original soundtrack to Candyman plus Candyman II: Farewell to the Flesh.

FSM writer Doug Adams has interviewed Mychael Danna about his recent work for an upcoming issue we're doing. Doug relates that Danna is currently in negotiations to score Ang Lee's Hulk movie.

Capitol has released an expanded 30th anniversary version of Fiddler on the Roof. The album is of course largely the songs from the film, but does include John Williams' adaptations/conducting, and adds some of his previously unreleased underscore.

Varese Sarabande's expanded editions of The Omen and The Final Conflict are out and they're awesome. The Final Conflict never sounded very good in its original release and the new remix, besides adding a ton of unreleased music (like the whole finale), won't scrape your eardrums like the old one.

John Williams has started work on Star Wars: Episode II, screening the rough cut of the film at Lucasfilm's ranch in Northern California. See this thread on our message board which has a link to the official Star Wars site: http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/Forum1/HTML/003371.html

Here are the winners from the recent contest by GNP CRESCENDO RECORDS (www.gnpcrescendo.com) and FILM SCORE MONTHLY:

GRAND PRIZE (1 WINNER): GREG BRYANT

1ST PLACE (2 WINNERS): Steve Hyland and Brent Bowles

2nd PLACE (3 WINNERS): Michael Horne, Mark Bagby, and Giles Edwards

3rd PLACE (10 WINNERS): Angel Garcia, Magdi Aboul-Kheir, Jeff Szpirglas, Paul Bouthillier, Jeffrey Bain, Alexander Rannie, Mark Browning, W. David Lichty, Kyle Beatty, and Vinicius Calvitti.

All winners have been contacted via email. CONGRATULATIONS!

For those of you interested in the answers to the questions they are listed below:

1. How many times has JAMES HORNER been nominated for an Academy Award and for which films was he nominated?

7 Times:An American Tail, Aliens, Field of Dreams, Apollo 13, Braveheart, and TITANIC (for score and song)

2. BLACK SCORPION star Joan Severance had a cameo in what 1987 action film that spawned a series of successful sequels and who composed the score to that film?

Lethal Weapon. Michael Kamen AND Eric Clapton.

3. Name 4 OTHER Films that James Horner's score to BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS has appeared in?

Space Raiders
Wizards of the Lost Kingdom
Barbarian Queen
Andy Colby's Incredible Adventure
(We would have also accepted SORCERESS)

4. What other film did James Horner score that BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS writer JOHN SAYLES wrote?

The Lady in Red.

5. In the STARGATE SG-1 episode, "THOR'S HAMMER," a famous actor played the voice of a cave dwelling creature. What was that actor's name and what was the characters name he voiced?

James Earl Jones played the voice of Unas.

Thank you for playing. Look for more contests in the future!

GNP CRESCENDO RECORDS
(www.gnpcrescendo.com)

This press release came off the moviemusic.com "ewire":

As part of the Audi Pops series, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and conductor Richard Kaufman will present the world concert premiere of music from the film IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (Herman Stein, Irving Gertz, and Henry Mancini). The selections from this 1953 science-fiction classic have been carefully reconstructed by orchestrator Kathleen Mayne of Monstrous Movie Music. The Halloween-themed concerts are scheduled for October 26-28, 2001, in the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas. Featured guest artists will be thereminist Robert Froehner and DSO organist Mary Preston. The program also features the Southwest concert premiere of music from ED WOOD (Howard Shore) as well as selections from JURASSIC PARK (Williams), PSYCHO (Herrmann), TWILIGHT ZONE-THE MOVIE (Goldsmith), ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES (Shaiman), E.T.- THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL (Williams), THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR (Herrmann), and more. Classically macabre works by Saint-Saens, Khachaturian, and Kabalevsky round out the program. For tickets or more information consult the Dallas Symphony website at www.dalsym.com or phone (214) 692-0203.

Program line up includes:

B. Herrmann: Suite from Psycho

J. Goldsmith: Twilight Zone - The Movie

H. Shore: Suite from Ed Wood

B. Herrmann: "Andante Cantabile" from The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

J. Williams: Suite from E.T.

C. Saint-Saens: Danse Macbre

J. Williams: Suite from Jurassic Park

M. Shaiman: Adams Family Values Tango

Program subject to change.

Composer William Goldstein circulated this notice about a new musical he's involved with:

The World Premiere of the Broadway Bound Musical Haven will open in Los Angeles November 1st, for a limited engagement of 18 performances. Previews will start on October 28th.

Haven will be mounted with an 20-member cast and a 12-piece orchestra at the Gindi Auditorium, in which every seat has a full view of the stage and excellent acoustics.

Haven is a true story. It is about 1000 holocaust survivors -- men, women, and children, plucked from the nightmare of Europe in 1944 and brought to a "safe haven" in the United States where their nightmare does not end.

Music by William Goldstein (Fame, The Miracle Worker, The Quarrel) Lyrics by Joe Darion (Man of La Mancha) and Book by Jerry Coopersmith (The Apple Tree)

For tickets call 310-476-9777 x201 or TicketMaster 213-365-3500

See it at the GINDI, 15600 Mulholland Drive at the 405 Fwy (FREE Parking)

Jeff Rona has written a new score to the 1928 silent film, The Fall of the House of Usher. It will screen with live musical performance on Monday, October 15th, 8PM at the Los Angeles County Museum Of Art, Bing Theater, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036.

See www.lacma.org; Museum ticket office: 323 857-6010

From: John Winfrey, Ranger7774@aol.com

I thought the article in this issue of FSM on Marco Polo and Morgan was excellent. There was a lot of good background on their releases. I enjoyed reading it. Good job. By the way, my favorites are Objective Burma with the extra music, that fanfare with flourishes and battle music and the Skinners and Salters.

My favorite Marco Polo album is King Kong. The piece is in the new issue which is reaching subscribers now (Vol. 6, No. 7), in case you're wondering what we're talking about.

From: Don Strack <dstrack@xmission.com>

I am a big fan of film scores and movie soundtracks. I have purchased 8 to 10 of your special soundtrack CDs, and would like to purchase more. But I am really not comfortable buying any more sight-unseen, without first hearing some samples.

In order to hear the snippets that you offer, I click on them and Real Player starts up, but it consistently gives me an error about not being able to read the file. It's a great idea to offer small 15 to 30 second samples, but why don't you use a more common format that an MP3 player could use, or one that the Windows Media Player can play? I have never had any luck using Real Player. I have reloaded it several times, but still it does not work for me. I am not tech-savvy, so if it does not work using whatever defaults are initially set, I simply don't use it.

Maybe Real Player would work if I bought the commercial version, but I can't pay for a player, simply because there are so many no-charge versions available, including the one that came free with my Windows operating system.

The impact for you is that I can't buy your CDs because I can't hear any of the samples. Your choice of format is affecting your wallet, whether or not Real Player is paying you some sort of compensation.

Our contracts with the studios specifically prohibit any high-end Internet encoding like MP3's; studios are rightfully concerned about Internet distribution of their materials. We're fortunate to be able to provide the low-res real audio clips. Sorry to hear you're having a problem with your player, but these things are bound to happen.

From: Richard Ewalt, rewalt@firstambank.com

Wow! Thanks for the Illustrated Man. I'm one of those guilty of buying the boot, but only because of my love for the score. You guys are doing an amazing job, and you make it seem so easy. I know it must be incredibly difficult work, and maybe that is why other labels have tried and failed. You have to be doing it for the love of the music, otherwise, how do you keep going? Anyway. Thanks. There are a lot of people out here that appreciate the work you are doing.

On another subject, even though I usually hate songs in lieu of score, Enya seems a natural choice for LOTR. Back in my college days when I discovered the books, I was also listening to Cat Stevens' Buddah and the Chocolate Box. (Boy, does that date me!) I always felt two songs from that album fit perfectly: King of Trees for the Treebeard segment later in the trilogy, and Home In The Sky for the end of the trilogy. Take a listen.

Thanks for your nice words. The Illustrated Man and The Bravados, our two new releases, are available now!

Composer Loran Alan Davis is planning a film music concert and is soliciting suggestions from film music fans. See his thread on our message board, which also contains an image of one of his film score manuscripts for interested fans: http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/Forum1/HTML/003382.html

Clement Fontaine has added an annotated CD discography at his Georges Delerue website, http://www.vif.com/users/disqcine/Delerue.html. More features will be added to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the composer's death in 2002, including a LP Discography of numerous scores never reissued on CD.

Eric Lichtenfeld, who has contributed several fine articles to FSM, is writing a column at DVDfile.com. Check it out at http://www.dvdfile.com/news/views/reaction_shot/09_30_01.html.

Classic FSM radio will broadcast a one-hour interview with John Williams on Saturday November 10th at 1800hrs GMT. The interview was conducted on September 13th after Williams finished the Harry Potter recording session in London. See www.classicfm.com.

Reader Gunnar Grah wrote to say he stumbled across an online article of the "EPD," the news agency of the German Protestant Church, about film music on the Internet. Apparently they call us the market leader! Hooray for the German Protestant Church. See the article (in German) at www.epd.de/film/2001/3musik.htm

Have a nice weekend!

MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com