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White House screens a film I orchestrated and conducted!

My work has made it all the way up to the White House for the second time! The first time it was sheet music preparation for Fiesta Latina at the White House in 2013. Today in the White House screening room they showed Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer.

I orchestrated the score for composer Boris Zelkin in 2016, and also conducted the recording sessions with a union orchestra at Castle Row Studios in Oklahoma City, OK. It’s a real surprise and honor to have an audience as prestigious as the White House staff, so many congrats to Ann McElhinney, Phelim McAleer, Magdalena Segieda, John Sullivan, Nick Searcy, Boris Zelkin, and the rest of the team.

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Arranging and orchestrating for Vashon Island Chorale

The Vashon Island Chorale is a choir of 80-100 people, plus orchestra, plus children’s choir led by Gary Cannon, who is a brilliant conductor in the Seattle area and also an old friend from our university days at UC Davis. I began my career as a classical pianist and singer, and it’s always a fun treat to write for ensembles that are so close to my musical roots. Beginning from piano music, I arranged and orchestrated a portion of their concert program specifically for their ensemble. Their 30th anniversary concert will be April 27-28 at the Vashon Center for the Arts. The program includes familiar classics by Bernstein, Copland, and Fauré, Vaughan Williams, Borodin, and local composers Eric Lane Barnes and Buzz Brusletten, plus a quartet of extraordinary local soloists.

 

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Air Strike released

Released today, Bruce Willis stars in the film Air Strike, which is also known as The Bombing and Unbreakable Spirit in other regions. The film is about the Japanese bombings of the Chinese city Chongqing during World War II, and was filmed as a memorial for the 70th anniversary of the Allied victory.

I orchestrated this film with Penka Kouneva for composer Liguang Wang. He is the President of China Conservatory of Music, and it was an honor to work with him. This particular project was much more involved than the average orchestration job because some of the sketches we got from Mr. Wang were quite sparse, so Penka and I had an enormous amount of freedom and latitude in the arranging. On occasion we received only a melody and the instruction to “do the Hollywood thing,” which of course we have a lot of fun with and do very well. We are officially orchestrators, but it felt very much like co-composing and I’m proud of how it turned out.

The score was recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra using a large ensemble of about 100 players.

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Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer

Finally released today!

In 2016 I orchestrated a film for composer Boris Zelkin called Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer. Today the movie from Hat Tip Films was released in 750 theaters nationwide.

Kermit Gosnell was an abortion doctor who somehow escaped inspections of his facilities for 18 years. By the end of that time the conditions were dire and both women and babies were dying at a remarkable rate. He was convicted of three counts of murder and life in prison without parole.

The story is not exclusively for the pro-life crowd. In 2013 Dayle Steinberg and Eric Ferrero, president and vice president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, wrote in an article “Gosnell ran a criminal enterprise, not a healthcare facility, and should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.”

Hat Tip Films had difficulty making the film because of the topic, and it got caught up in litigation once complete, but now it finally has a nationwide release. It’s is a crime drama and the main characters are the cops, so it’s not a political opinion piece. The story is true, it has never gotten much media coverage, and it can inform arguments on both sides of the abortion debate. I recommend you see it.

Mark Abel Named Delos Co-Director

Many congratulations to Mark Abel, a longtime client and collaborator, for becoming the co-director of Delos. The Delos record label is one of the last and greatest classical music labels, and I have supported Mark with sheet music prep and orchestrations on five Delos releases to date. The releases have gone so well he’s not just a recording artist any more, he’s helping to run the label!

Mark willfully entered the contemporary classical music world relatively late in life, after ending a long career as a journalist and changing directions. His determination, focus, and self-education are significant, and the fruits of his labor are clearly showing. In addition to co-directing Delos with Carol Rosenberger we are also working on the next album project which will come out sometime next year, so he’s not slowing down.

My first collaboration with Mark was in 2011. In the last 8 years his music career has gone basically from zero to having a large catalogue and co-directing a label. Many congratulations Mark! I’m happy for you.

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Nathan Barr Wurlitzer theater organ featurette

Nathan Barr bought and restored the 1928 Wurlitzer theater organ from Fox studios, and constructed a purpose-built studio around it which he named Bandrika Studios. It hails from the days of silent films when live organists would accompany the film, and it has a formidable history of recording after the advent of sound. The organ is the central heart of Bandrika, and it consumes 6 rooms of it. There is the live room and then rooms for the blower, air routing and tremolo, percussion and pipes, more pipes, and one more which I can’t quite recall.

The studio and the organ are only recently finished, and the first film score he was able to score using the organ was the spooky kids film I helped to orchestrate called A House With A Clock In Its Walls. The Wurlitzer had been boxed up for 25 years and used only sparsely for many years before that, so it was really fun for us to hear it come back to life and begin to fulfill its purpose again. They were the first recording sessions at the fully functional Bandrika.

This is a little behind the scenes video about the organ and that score, shot on one of our recording session days.

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A House With A Clock In Its Walls released

Nothing is better than bringing a childhood fantasy to life!

Today, the film A House With A Clock In Its Walls was released by Universal Pictures. It was an immense pleasure for me to orchestrate this film with Penka Kouneva for film composer Nathan Barr, because the book was a childhood favorite of mine. I still have the John Bellairs trilogy I read as a boy, and I brought my old childhood books to the recording sessions. It was a truly wonderful experience to hold my childhood keepsakes while listening to the orchestral music I worked on come to life.

These recording sessions were also the very first full orchestra sessions at Nathan Barr’s recently completed facility Bandrika Studio. He built the studio entirely around the old Fox Wurlitzer theater organ which he has been restoring for the last 5 years, and it’s now happily back in service. It’s far more than an organ, because in addition to the 2000+ pipes the player can also play piano, glockenspiel, xylophone, marimba, vibraphone, celesta, drums, and a wide array of percussion. It’s a mechanical wonder all powered by air pressure and springs, and this was also the first score for which the organ has been used in decades. The studio and the organ are both in business!

The film is a fantastic, fun, quirky experience that’s JUST scary enough for a 10 year old to feel spooked but still sleep well. Jack Black and Cate Blanchett are fantastic as always, and I highly recommend the film.

More photos of our recording session are on ScoringSessions.com.

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Animal World is 2nd most profitable film in the world

The Chinese film Animal World from Ruyi Films, which I orchestrated with Penka Kouneva for composer Neal Acree, has become the 2nd most profitable film in the world this year, and the soundtrack is #1 in Asia. It was a huge honor to work with the world-class team on this film.

Starring Michael Douglas, the film’s story and visuals are both a fantastic collision of Hollywood style cinema and video game style graphics, seamlessly merging the two from start to finish. To facilitate that contrast producer Fei Yu made the very unusual decision to hire two composers. Neal Acree was in charge of the orchestral elements, which I worked on, and Michael Tuller from Nine Inch Nails was in charge of all the electronic elements.

The story is a unique blend of drama, strategy game, and pure fantasy, and I highly recommend it.

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Universal releases Skyscraper

Today Universal Pictures released Skyscraper, a massive summer blockbuster starring Dwayne The Rock Johnson. It’s everything you could want from a big summer film, and I had the pleasure of orchestrating the massive orchestral film score with Penka Kouneva for composer Steve Jablonsky. This is definitely one you want to see in the theaters! Imagine Die Hard, but more epic and with a more likable hero.