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Alan Silvestri (who lives in NorCal) recorded Predator II and Soapdish with the Skywalker Symphony, as did Christoper Young for Jennifer 8 and David Shire for Zodiac.
They've also done a lot of back-up work for pop albums, but they never really broke into film work for the most part.
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They were also credited on a number of episodes during the run of "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" back in the '90's, as well as some follow up direct-to-video feature-length episodes into the late 1990's. I have no idea when the orchestra was finally over.
They also recorded two rejected scores ("Zoom" by Rupert Gregson Williams and "Murder in Mississippi" by Bernstein).
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Did it ever really existed or it is just a "fancy" name for individually contracted musicians from the area picked from various sources just like Hollywood Studio Symphony, Czech National Symphony and many/most of others?
Skywalker Scoring stage is certainly still active as RENFIELD was also recorded there.
I've heard claims that the Skywalker Symphony was just the SFO under a contractual pseudonym.
Could be. In any case, glad to hear that scoring stage is still in use though.
As for the original poster's question, I too am curious as to why John Williams and George Lucas abandoned the Skywalker Symphony, when Lucas' clear intention was to make it "the new Star Wars orchestra" and inaugurated it as such with that Trilogy album.
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Several of the Star Wars video game scores were also recorded there up until 2012. It seems to this day a lot of video games in general are still being recorded there.
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Did it ever really existed or it is just a "fancy" name for individually contracted musicians from the area picked from various sources just like Hollywood Studio Symphony, Czech National Symphony and many/most of others?
Skywalker Scoring stage is certainly still active as RENFIELD was also recorded there.
I've heard claims that the Skywalker Symphony was just the SFO under a contractual pseudonym.
Could be. In any case, glad to hear that scoring stage is still in use though.
As for the original poster's question, I too am curious as to why John Williams and George Lucas abandoned the Skywalker Symphony, when Lucas' clear intention was to make it "the new Star Wars orchestra" and inaugurated it as such with that Trilogy album.
I've seen the Skywalker Scoring stage quite a few times over the years in end credits, so it's definitely in use.
As far as the actual orchestra, I have no idea, but it sure is an interesting question. If it's the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under contractual pseudonym, that would explain it's relative absence from film recordings, as the SFSO has quite a busy schedule. (It's an excellent orchestra, no doubt.)
In any case, musicians of that caliber are very expensive, and no one keeps an orchestra around if it doesn't regularly perform (concerts or (film) recordings).
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Posted: |
Mar 27, 2023 - 6:50 AM
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By: |
TM
(Member)
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It's the tongue-in-cheek name given to musicians contracted from the greater SF area and recorded at Skywalker Ranch. It was Lucasfilm's attempt to bring scoring in-house by building a soundstage that rivalled LA, but it never really caught on. People have contracted in SF sporadically over the years, particularly Mario Guarneri, who moved there in the 90's from a successful career in the LA Phil and Hollywood Studios, to transition to teaching at the SF Conservatory and begin a contracting career there. Seattle was big for a while, now it's Nashville. New York has always had a toe hold. I've mentioned elsewhere, Danny Elfman tried out SF musicians on Mars Attacks, didn't like it, and when he came back to LA and the trumpets played a particularly jazzy shake, he came running out of the booth yelling, that's it, that's it, that's what it's supposed to sound like!!
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