The Norwegian film I Onde Dager (In evil days), titled The Trip in English, was released internationally today and you can watch it on Netflix. It’s an action-comedy film with a fantastic suspenseful score by Christian Wibe. It was a real pleasure to do the orchestration and score preparation for Christian, and we recorded the score last April in Budapest. The soundtrack is available on Amazon, Apple Music, and everywhere else. Christian Wibe’s music for this film is evocative, visceral, and a perfect fit for this suspenseful film set in the woods. The film was directed by Tommy Wirkola, stars Swedish actress Noomi Rapace and Norwegian actor Aksel Hennie. I highly recommend both the film generally and the score specifically.
Album release: Forsaken Themes From Fantastic Films, Vol. 1: Tears in Rain
It was a real pleasure working with Robin Esterhammer and Perseverance Records on this album titled Forsaken Themes From Fantastic Films, Vol. 1: Tears in Rain. Part of it is a new production of the unused film score for the 1987 horror film Hellraiser. Christopher Young wrote the brilliant soundtrack that ended up in the film. A band named Coil wrote a synth score prior which went unused. I transcribed it in excruciating detail, and Ryan Dodson produced it beautifully. It’s a substantial improvement over the 1987 synths, and Coil’s music might have made it into the film if it sounded like this back then!
The Police Deranged concert tour finally starting
Long-delayed due to covid, the show is finally on the road!
It’s been an enormous pleasure to work with Stewart to orchestrate this concert tour of songs by The Police, and also a little surreal to work on and derange music I grew up with. Stewart will play drums as usual, Sting’s voice is replaced by three singers, and the orchestra replaces guitar and bass. This tour was supposed to happen in 2020, so it’s a pleasure to finally see it getting on the road.
The first show is August 27 with the San Diego Symphony.
The Battle for Narvik movie
I’m very proud of Christine Hals, who is currently scoring a big film about the WWII battles in Narvik, Norway. She’s on the project early enough to have also written a custom score for the trailer, and it’s perfect. It doesn’t matter if you know Norwegian or not, her music will tell you the story. I orchestrated this trailer and I look forward to doing the whole film with her.
Oscars 2020 – Eminem with full orchestra
Two years in a row the Oscars orchestra has used sheet music I prepared, and this year it was for the big surprise act Eminem. As the song says, I’m grateful for the opportunity! This performance was a top-secret surprise even to Oscars organizers, who only had (name redacted) on their call sheets. We prerecorded a full orchestra at Capitol Records several days prior because it’s not possible to get 80 people on and off stage quickly, and then used a smaller ensemble on stage for the performance. The arrangement and orchestration was done by Dontae Winslow, the trumpet player on stage during the show. Many thanks to Dontae for bringing me onto the gig.
Premiere of Stewart Copeland oratorio Satan’s Fall
It was a real pleasure to orchestrate for Stewart Copeland and this 80-person choir with orchestra. The oratorio is titled “Satan’s Fall” and is based on books 5 & 6 of John Milton’s epic poem “Paradise Lost.” This kind of orchestration is far more fun than film scores! The premiere was Feb 7-8 in Pittsburgh and 8 more orchestras in other cities are already booked to perform it, so this show was a hit even before the premiere.
The Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburg did a fantastic job in the premiere and we’re very grateful for all their hard work. Here’s a YouTube playlist of the whole show.
Backstage photo:
Zophiel – Anastasia Robinson (soprano)
Messiah – Stephanie Sue Curtice (soprano)
God – Hayden Keefer (bass)
Composer – Stewart Copeland
Chorus Manager – MaryColleen Seip
Satan – Scott O’Neal (bass)
Abdiel – Colin Farley (tenor)
Music Director – Matthew Mahaffey
Raphaella – Jamie Chamberlin (soprano)
Raphael – Nathan Granner (tenor)
Belial – Tim Marquette (bass) (not pictured)
David Arkenstone opera to be workshopped
David Arkenstone is a 4-time Grammy nominee who has worked on 45 albums, 20 Billboard hits, film & TV soundtracks, commercials, and game scores. I’ve worked with him for several years now, and it’s always a pleasure. Adding to his diverse career, he’s now working on a new opera called The Fall Of Atlantis, presumably inspired by his 2004 album Atlantis which was nominated for a Grammy. The libretto is written by Scott Lord, who is also a generous supporter of the UC Santa Cruz opera program.
David will be workshopping the new opera at UC Santa Cruz this summer, and in preparation for that I helped him with the music copyist work for his piano vocal score. After the workshop will be the inevitable revisions, and then the fun work of orchestrating the show and working towards a full production will begin.
Matt Cook recording session in Prague
Today Matt Cook and I had a very good recording session with the orchestra in Prague. Matt is working on an ambitious demo project and has written a lot of really interesting music. I’m orchestrating and doing score prep for him, but also coaching him a bit on orchestration. I’ll be doing the music mixes later on also.
Matt travelled to Prague for the session and I stayed in Los Angeles. In the past I have produced sessions both in person and remotely, but this was my first time co-producing a session when one of us was there and one of us was not. It took a bit of getting used to, but it worked well in the end.
The orchestra in Prague sounds really good. When I first used them perhaps 12-14 years ago they were notably weaker, and it took 4 hours there to accomplish what we could do in 3 in LA. They have closed that gap almost entirely, and at 60% the cost of LA or Nashville it’s unfortunately hard to justify keeping the money in our own local music economy.
Cinematic trailer for Overwatch 2 released at BlizzCon
Orchestrating for massive ensembles is always a privilege, but especially so when I also get to work with Neal Acree and Penka D Kouneva. Overwatch is a massive game franchise from Blizzard. Neal Acree is scoring much of the game, but this 8-minute cinematic trailer for Overwatch 2 was composed by Penka Kouneva. It was played at BlizzCon 2019 as the big reveal of their new game. Many congrats Neal and Penka! You’re killing it. And many thanks for trusting me to orchestrate your wonderful music.