Earnest congratulations to Howard Shore who, on Wednesday, November 19, will receive France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres at the French Embassy in New York City. 

I hate to start a week of posting on a negative note, but it seems the inauthentic Herr der Ringe von Howard Shore in Concert are once again beginning to make the rounds. For the unacquainted, these are concerts that have been organized without the participation or consent of New Line, Warner Brothers or Howard Shore. Shore's music was taken down (inaccurately) by ear by an arranger, who has decided to incorporate his own additions in order to "improve" the composer's music. It is as if a student painter decided to re-paint Picasso's Guernica adding dabs of color and smiling faces to make up for the creator's shortcomings.

The following is excerpted from a piece theonering.net is running as part 3 of a transcribed talk Guillermo Del Toro gave at the New Yorker Festival. I thought the below would likely interest this blog's readership:

Guillermo: Yeah. Yeah. That’s right.

Anthony: And how …

Guillermo: … I’m meeting with him tomorrow.

Andrew: Oh, OK. And is that you’re first?

Guillermo: Ah, no. I met him before. And I’ve admired him for even longer. But, my feeling is one of the most fortunate things that he’s back because if you have to single out the most important pieces of continuing that Universe, he certainly is one.

Anthony: Absolutely. So thus far what are your conversations with him like? I mean down to Do you feed him pages? Or are you..

Guillermo: No I think the best way to go about this is to keep the pages to ourselves and just allow people to come from different places – where it be designers, you know. We have conversations – I’ve had a great couple of conversations with John Howe and Alan Lee. And John has been feeding me reactions – reaction sketches to those conversations. And I try not to react to those sketches yet. I try to allow him to feel he’s free to try anything he wants; ‘cause then you are surprised. The same thing is with Howard. I think the parameters are pretty clear. And that is it has to belong to the same Universe, and the music of the three movies – so.

Wolf Trap has just made it official, The Two Towers Live will see its US premiere this coming August:

Wolf Trap Filene Center
Friday, August 28 7:30 pm
Saturday, August 29 7:30 pm
Ticket Price: $25 - $55

This coming year looks to hold an amazing wealth of live performances...

The Star Telegram provides a quick review/overview of last night's DSO concert with Anthony Hopkins.  Sounds as if Silence of the Lambs opened the show. Click here to read the full piece.

Friends, raise your glasses to wish a very happy birthday to Howard Shore, who was born on October 18, 1946.

FYI: Tickets for the April, 2009 London Philharmonic performance of The Fellowship of the Ring performed live to picture will go on sale this Friday, October 17 at the LPO's official website. Look lively!

Hi all,

...and, if all goes according to plan, you will too in a year or so.

Those in the Dallas, Texas area may with to attend the following: 

Greetings concertgoers!April 6, 7 & 8, 2009

Hi everyone,

In the philological spirit of Tolkien, I read with great interest Time's article on words Collins English Dictionary wants to remove from from its listing. Here is the article, and here is the list.

The Riddles Unraveled thread ended up generating more discussion than last month's Ongoing Discussion thread. In order to keep the conversation easily accessible, I'm porting it over here. Immediately below are the last handful of posts from Riddles. New postings will appear below that.

Stop by the Calgary Symphony's website to purchase tickets.

The headline says it all. Tickets aren't yet available, but following are current details:

Art Production's site now has tickets on sale for the March, 2009 performances in Lucerne. See here!