Steve Caporale is the leader of a San Diego based band called The Captured which balances a retro rock feel with modern vibes. I orchestrated the brass arrangements for his newest songs and his upcoming album recording.
Silicon Valley Symphony
Dr. Pablo E. Furman, a composer originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, is a professor of music at San José State University. He was recently commissioned by Silicon Valley Symphony to compose an enormous piece. Orchestrated for a massive orchestra plus full choir, his piece “The Singing Icons” is an impressive work and was programmed next to Rachmaninoff’s “The Bells”, an equally large-scale piece. I did the music copyist and engraving work for his score and prepared all the parts for the performance.
Working with Lisbeth Scott
Lisbeth Scott is a vocalist & composer who has performed and written for many huge film scores such as Avatar, The Chronicles of Narnia, Spiderman, and many more. She is currently contracted as co-composer and lyricist for two Broadway musical productions, one of which she is co-writing with film composer Nathan Barr. Over the last few weeks I have been working with Lisbeth and Penka Kouneva, transcribing and notating Lisbeth’s songs so they’re ready for rehearsals. I can’t announce the show title just yet…
The Americans Season 3 begins
The Americans is an American period drama television series from the FX television network. Set in the early 1980s during the Cold War, it’s a period drama about the complex marriage of two KGB spies posing as Americans in suburban Washington D.C. during the Reagan administration. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 97% approval rating, which is basically as good as it gets.
The 3rd season begins today, and a little bit of my work will be heard every week from now on. In May I transcribed and notated the orchestral main title theme music for composer Nathan Barr so that it could be re-recorded for this season.
At the same time that I worked on the theme music with Nathan, I also prepared some sheet music for this song, which was written by the legendary Pete Townshend from The Who specifically for the episode of The Americans released on April 30, 2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InGj5CVmBnI
Andrae Crouch memorial
Pastor Andraé Edward Crouch was an award-winning gospel musician influential in the Christian Music movement since in the 1960s, and he died on January 8. His memorial service was today, and I am honored to be a small part of the music team that is creating new tribute music in his memory. I worked with Pastor Michael McCurtis to prepare sheet music for the memorial service of new music written in his honor.
ZMX signs Neko Case
ZMX Music has just signed singer songwriter Neko Case, and we’re very happy to add her to our roster of ZMX artists. We will be creating sheet music for her most popular songs and publishing them through our own channels, on her website, and on MusicNotes.com.
Ben Hur Chicago a huge success
The recent show showing the 1923 version of Ben Hur, with a new Stewart Copeland score played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was a great success, and more opportunities are coming from it. The thousands of pages of music in our second edition print were trouble free and didn’t prompt a single question from the orchestra, which I’m very happy about. We got overwhelmingly positive reviews from publications such as BMI, CSO Sounds, Chicago Splash, The Chigago Sun Times, and The Examiner.
I was Stewart’s orchestrator and music copyist, and I did all the score prep for the premiere in Norfolk, VA at the Virginia Arts Festival in April 2014.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ9AEVjQGek
Ben Hur will play at Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Our performance of Ben Hur was so successful at the Virginia Arts Festival that now we’re doing the show with one of the best orchestras in the world, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The film is beautifully restored, the orchestra very tightly synched with the film, and the orchestra impressive. This is a small video segment from our show in Norfolk. I was the music copyist and engraver for Schirmer and Stewart Copeland.
Winifred Phillips & GameSoundCon
I finally got a chance to meet Winifred Phillips, a video game composer and author, in person at GameSoundCon. Her book A Composer’s Guide to Game Music is a comprehensive, practical guide that leads an aspiring video game composer from acquiring the necessary creative skills to understanding the function of music in games to finding work in the field. There is nothing else like it on the market, and it’s becoming a big hit. I was her music copyist and prepared all the music engravings for the musical examples that are in her book, but we had not yet met face to face! GameSoundCon is the premiere convention for video game composers and sound designers, and highly recommended.