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.
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.
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)
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.
Encounter film released, score by Penka Kouneva
Composer and orchestrator Penka Kouneva is a valued colleague whose team I’ve had the privilege of working on since 2012 or so. She’s a powerhouse in Hollywood and also wonderful to work with. One of her most recent projects is a SciFi Drama feature she scored called Encounter, directed by Paul J. Salamoff. The film looks fantastic, it’s won a bunch of awards in the festival circuit, and it comes out today.
Penka’s score is a traditional thematic score that also pays an homage to some electronic science fiction scores. She is a brilliant orchestrator, but she was a little short on time so I had the privilege of orchestrating a few small cues in the film for her. I work with her often, but most frequently on other composers’ music. She’s of course very particular about her own music, and it’s always an honor to work on her compositions. The music is brilliant of course, and I highly recommend the film.
Premiere of Lou Bucalo’s musical An American Victory
Tomorrow night at the 1,200-seat La Mirada Theater, a musical theater show called An American Victory has its first show. This video is a great preview of it. I’ve been working with composer Lou Bucalo as arranger and orchestrator, my good friend and colleague Gentry Tennyson is music director, and about 6,300 printed pages of sheet music are currently in use at the LA Musician’s Union practice space in the final rehearsal. It features Broadway cast members from Les Miserables and Aladdin, and I look forward to hearing it come to life. It’s been a heavy push to make it to this performance, so I also look forward to a good nap!
Penka Kouneva and Bulgarian Youth Symphony Orchestra Progressive
Penka Kouneva and I just finished another orchestral project, a 10-minute commission titled “Triptych” that she composed for the Youth Symphony Orchestra Progressive in her home country of Bulgaria.
Penka did all the composing and orchestrating for the orchestral instruments, but because she was busy working on other projects at the same time she entrusted me with the percussion arranging to support her writing. Penka is a very high-caliber and exacting composer, so the fact that she entrusts me with her music is always a great honor. We dropped my percussion writing into her score, our trusty ally Junko Tamura did the music copyist work, and everything worked wonderfully.
Rehearsals begin soon, and the concert will be held on July 24 in the ancient Roman Amphitheater in the city of Plovdiv, which was built between 90-100 A.D.
