Yes, it wasn't just a few days ago that I was decrying reviews as remnants of a lost age, but I thought this one was so strong that I can help but post it. I can live with my hypocrisy if you can! This piece by Jonathan Weilbaecher originally ran HERE. It's always gratifying to see a non-music-based site tackle a review like his with such enthusiasm, so please be sure to click over and reward theflickcast.com's hit count.

Film Score Friday: ‘The Lord of the Rings Symphony’ by Howard Shore by Jonathan Weilbaecher, Sep 16 2011

There are a few quintessential film scores in every generation. Amongst the first of the new century is the music from The Fellowship of the Ring, Howard Shore’s epic, sweeping and moving first score in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. At the end of the day, all three scores work together to tell the single story of the Lord of the Rings, weaving in and out of complex themes and structures more like an opera than a traditional film score.  

This epic master work has recently found new life with the release of The Lord of the Rings Symphony, a six movement piece that spans the entire trilogy. The music is structured into two movements per movie, emulating the two books in each volume of the trilogy. Each movie getting between twenty and forty minutes of their best musical moments, woven together like a single cohesive musical experience. 

So the first question on my mind as I hear about this release is how it sounds. Many times when there is a re-recording of a release, it doesn’t have that certain spark of the original recording, the music is all there, but it is just not quite the same. Thankfully, for this release the music is almost perfection, and several cases I even prefer the new recorded cues to the originals I have listened to for years.  

So yes, the music translates wonderfully to this new arrangement, and the heavy inclusion of choirs and vocalists is a big reason for it. The film’s music had the luxury of finding the most talented singers and musicians for the original recordings, and the people who played and sang on this release stands toe to toe with them. Even the end credits songs, which each have iconic and different singular sounds are covered with skill. I can easily see my self lightening to this album when I want a quick Lord of the Rings fix, it is that good.  

Normally I do my three favorite tracks, and my least favorite. With only six tracks on this release and none worth pointing out as a worst, I am instead going to just go over each movement: 

Movement One - The beginning, the mood setter, and the track with the most heavy lifting to do. One of, if not the, most iconic themes of the trilogy is that of the Hobbits. In the movies this theme is introduced very quickly as Bilbo explains Hobbits to the audience. When you start movement one, you are not yet sure how good the whole thing will sound. The music from the prologue is presented well, but it isn’t until the Hobbit music that you realize that you are in good hands. The best part is that it isn’t just a carbon copy, this version even has some of it’s own texture, which really brings it to life in this setting.  

Movement Two - This is the longest single movement from the album, and it is almost entirely brilliant. It starts with the elves and the etherial sounds of Rivendell, moves triumphantly to the Fellowship theme, and continues to wow as the second half of the first film is played out beautifully. There are two moments in this movement I want to focus on, the first being the single best version of the Fellowship theme I have ever heard.  

It is big, heroic and never fails to give me goosebumps. The second moment is a smaller moment that never stood out to me before on any soundtrack release. When the fellowship passes by the Argonath, statues honoring the kings of old, the music is just stunning. I know I picked up on it in the movies, but never on a soundtrack release, until now.  

Movement Three - Moving on to the second film now, movement three has some more amazing music. When you first hear the theme for the people of Rohan I almost lose it every time. The way it builds from the pieces of the fellowship theme, and a great version of the orcs music is just perfect. In context of the symphony I think it actually plays better, in fact I think it sounds better too. This movement also has some really great Isengard themes as well, really selling the point that this moment in the symphony represents the lowest, most hopeless point in the journey.  

Movement Four – This music represents the turning of the tide, when hope rode back into story. It begins with the elves marching to be at the side of man one last time and then transitions into my favorite moment in the entire symphony. The music that accompanies Theoden’s ride out to the Uruk-hi and Gandalf’s epic return is easily the most moving music Shore has ever written.  

Again it is the context of what music plays around this cue that elevates it even more. Also of note in this movement is a wonderful version of Gollum’s Song, the original version has much more of a nordic vide to it, and this version is sung a little more traditionally. I think this actually improves the song.  

Movement Five - We have finally come to music from the last of the films. There is a lot going on in this movie, and on the soundtrack the score does kind of jump around a bit. More so than either of the other two films, and the rearrangement of the music into this symphonic package really brings out the best of it. My favorite moment in this movement is the music for the lighting of the beacons, a thrilling, if a little hooky, moment from the movies that plays beautifully in this movement. Also a tiny moment from Faramir’s ride to Osgiliath is buried in here and is a perfect counter to all of the battle music that populates the rest of the track. 

Movement Six - The film might have twenty five endings, but the music for the last portion of The Return of the King is so good that I would have sat through twenty five more. The movement starts with the music from the final confrontation of good vs. evil. Frodo and Sam are on mount doom, Aragorn is leading the men of the west to the gates of Mordor, basically sh*t is about to go down. Seamlessly the music lays of the final battle, hitting on most of the iconic musical moments for the perfect amount of time.  

From this epic finale it then plays off with almost the entire music from the prolonged end of the trilogy, even the song Aragorn sings at his coronation is here. It is beautiful, every note, all the way to the very end with a version of Into the West and a wonderful cue that lives at the very end of the credits, fittingly closing the book on one of the greatest musical achievements in modern history.  

So yeah, I loved this symphony. It is perfect, amazing, beautiful, or just about any adjective you can use to describe something great. Even if you own the original soundtracks and the complete recordings (as I do) you will want to make sure to pick this up.  

Final Score The Lord of the Rigs Symphony: 5 out of 5

While the expansive west coast tour of LOTR in Concert: FOTR gears up in the States, Switzerland has been busily preparing for the return of Return ...

On Sunday, April 8, 2012 the 21st Century Orchestra and Chorus under Maestro Ludwig Wicki will perform LOTR in Concert: ROTK at Luzern's KKL. It's a one-night-only performance at 5:00 p.m., not unlike the one-off performances that fell a few weeks before the Radio City performances in past years.

The Orchestra's official site only includes the 2011 calendar right now, but keep your browsers pointed HERE for announcements and tickets.


I don't know that I've ever seen our right sidebar of performances any fuller than it is right now. Very exciting!

 Ok, one more bit of news this week:

Howard Shore's score to A Dangerous Method will be released in the UK on September 16. The US release will be close on its heels, but nearer to the film's release in the States. The album includes Shore's original score, and concludes Wagner's "Siegfried Idyll" as arranged for piano by Shore and performed by Lang Lang.

Tracklist is below. UK orders can be placed HERE (and listen to the samples while you're there). US, as noted, is forthcoming.


1. Burghölzli
2. Miss Spielrein
3. Galvanometer
4. Carriage
5. He's Very Persuasive
6. Sabina
7. Otto Gross
8. A Boat with Red Sails
9. Siegfried
10. Freedom
11. End of the Affair
12. Letters
13. Confession
14. Risk My Authority
15. Vienna
16. Only One God
17. Something Unforgivable
18. Reflection
19. Siegfried Idyll (Wagner)

In May of this year, I was contacted by Howard Shore's office with a rather unique request: Can you write a concert?

Wait, let me back up.

Before I came into the picture this inchoate concert was the brainchild of James Cassidy, conductor of the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra. Cassidy had envisioned a concert that would encompass both of the great musical Rings, one Wagner's, one Tolkien's/Shore's. He had brought his idea to Shore, who was intrigued. This, of course, had been a topic of conversation for a number of years. Jonathan Dean had given some Wagner/Shore talks back in the early 2000s, and added some thoughts for the Music of LOTR book. Alex Ross had written a piece for the New Yorker. One of New York's very first choral performances of Shore's Rings music featured a sort of back-to-back with Wagner. But these fascinating comparative glimpses were just this -- cursory glimpses into a rich vein of subject matter.

So that mid-May phone call came in. Can you write a concert? A Wagner/Shore concert? Can we do something that is both deeply informative and narratively resonant?

"Sure! Yes!" I said, remembering that whenever asked if you can do something, you're supposed to say "Sure! Yes!" and then figure it out later.

"Sure! Yes!" I think you're supposed to repeat it, too.

So over the next few weeks and months I once again buried myself in Ring lore. It had been a while since I'd been back in research mode and it felt ... good, actually. Great, even. I love this part of any project. I re-read every Wagner text I had at hand, and ordered a few new ones to boot. Heck, I even reviewed certain bits of my own book, just to put myself back in the proper headspace.

And, of course, there was the music -- nearly twenty-four glorious hours of it -- which I studied with the written scores. We wanted a two-act performance, each half around forty-five minutes in length, so some judiciously thoughtful pruning was required.

"Pruning" is a scary word. It's essentially an act of adaptation, which, when you're dealing with such classic material, is quite a gamble. Too much of this, or too little of that, and you're sunk. In this case, however, "pruning" was the key.

I decided this would work best as a performance for orchestra, chorus, soloists, and narrator. Wagner isn't Shore and Shore isn't Wagner, but they were both influenced by the same sort of mythological histories, and they responded in somewhat similar ways. Sometimes those similarities are musical, sometimes textual, sometimes extra-musical, etc. If these things were going to be addressed in a performance, you'd need a narrator. And, if the narrator is going to make these points, the audience needs to hear these points. This is a performance, not a lecture. So this means you can't have Act One be purely Shore or Act Two be purely Wagner. The composers need to coexist structurally. And once they're doing that, the "pruning" spells itself out nicely, because your structure is dictated by the relationship between the two composers' music. How does Wagner handle conflict, musically speaking? How does Shore? How does Shore handle love? How does Wagner? How about death? Rebirth? Nature? Greed?

This was the trick to the storytelling. Don't try too hard to compress. You simply can't push that much material into that size box. Instead, shift focus; move your frame around. "Pruning" led to a comparative structure, and the comparative structure led to what I feel is the perfect balance of the two composers. Act One will be primarily focused on Tolkien and Shore with splashes of Wagner tossed in here and there. Act Two is the direct opposite: Wagner with dashes of Shore for variety and clarity. The weighty/lengthy pieces were referred to as the "Selections," the shorter (but still substantial) bits were "Inserts."

Here's our musical rundown:


Act One
Selection 1: Shore: The Prologue
Selection 2: Shore: Concerning Hobbits
Insert 1: Shore: The Pity of Gollum
Insert 2: Shore: The History of the Ring
Insert 3: Wagner: The Ring Motif
Insert 4: Wagner: The Forging Theme
Insert 5: Shore: Isengard (Five-beat Pattern)
Insert 6: Shore: Rivendell
Insert 7: Shore: The Fellowship Theme
Insert 8: Wagner: Siegfried's Horn
Insert 9: Shore: The Gondor Theme
Selection 3: Shore: Khazad-dûm
Insert 10: Wagner: Birdsong Motif
Insert 11: Shore: Nature's Reclamation
Insert 12: Wagner: Loge as Fire
Selection 4: Shore: March of the Ents
Insert 13: Shore: Mount Doom Theme
Insert 14: Shore: Andúril - Flame of the West
Insert 15: Shore: Fellowship, Gondor, and Rohan
Insert 16: Shore: Sam at Cirith Ungol
Selection 5: Shore: For Frodo/Mount Doom/Crack of Doom
Selection 6: Shore: Days of the Ring


Act Two
Selection 7: Wagner: Entrance of the Gods Into Valhalla
Insert 17: Shore: Ringwraiths
Selection 8: Wagner Ride of the Valkyries
Selection 9: Wagner: Magic Fire Music
Insert 18: Wagner: Siegfried's Strength Motif
Insert 19: Shore: Descending Thirds
Selection 10: Wagner: Forest Murmurs
Insert 20: Wagner: Dragon Motif
Insert 21: Wagner: Siegfried vs. Fafner
Insert 22: Shore: Five-beat/Fellowship
Insert 23: Wagner: Brünnhilde’s Love (Siegfried Idyll)
Insert 24: Shore: The Grace of Undómiel
Insert 25: Wagner: Brünnhilde the Valkyrie & Siegfried's Heroism
Insert 26: Shore: Shire Theme (flute setting)
Insert 27: Wagner: Siegfried and Brünnhilde the Woman
Insert 28: Shore: The Death of Boromir
Selection 11: Wagner: Siegfried's Funeral Music
Selection 12: Wagner: Finale

And between everything is the narration that keeps track of the story elements, and the development of the leitmotivic material. But it's the music that carries the show, not the words. All is in service of these two composers. Obviously, it's quite a balancing act!

As I say, this was huge fun for me. It was a chance to dig into this music once again and find something entirely new to talk about. It was also a chance to program music that's rarely heard like this. In the case of Shore, this will be the first time some of this music has been heard live without overlaid sound effects and dialogue. And Wagner's Ring score is notoriously difficult to bring into the concert world because it's so interwoven with its lengthy plot. I don't know that some of these pieces have ever been done outside of the opera hall in this manner.

Of Rings and Myths is on the Kentucky Symphony's schedule for the evening of Saturday, October 8, 2011. Handling the vocal end of the evening will be the KSO Chorale featuring soprano Kara Shay Thompson and tenor Ric Furman. I'll take the role of narrator for the night and James Cassidy will conduct the gathered forces. Tickets and additional details are available at the KSO's official website. (I'll also be signing The Music of the Lord of the Rings that weekend in conjunction with the concert -- details to come.) If this performance is the success we hope it will be, we'd very much like to see the show tour as have previous Rings shows. This is a fantastic way to bring this music to orchestras that aren't equipped for the multimedia experience of the LOTR Symphony or the Live to Projection performances. And per our usual, the goal is to create something that's satisfying to fans of both Rings, musicians and non-musicians, young and old.

If you're in the area, please come join us! If not, this one may be worth a road trip! More to come ...

It's over a year away, but Fellowship in Concert (the official rebranding of the Live to Projection series) will play Melbourne, Australia on Thursday, October 4 and Friday, October 5, 2012.

Sure, it seems a long way off now, but since most readers here have an eye firmly fixed on December 2012 already, it'll go quickly!

Chicago in Review

I love the Chicago Symphony. It’s not only my “home symphony,” it’s one of the best in the world. I’ve watched this ensemble my whole life, and have performed with many of the players over the years. I love the heritage and the well-honed, sharp-toothed sound they bring to everything they play. When it was announced that Fellowship would play at Ravinia, I knew immediately that Ludwig Wicki would evince a completely unique sound from the orchestra. Howard Shore’s music has such a particular sense of voicing. His Rings music is really built on intersecting blocks of sound. In many ways, that’s the key to the ancient/modern sound. The blocks themselves have a Germanic sense of weight and gravity, but the interaction has a sort of smooth, delicate French/Italian flavor. It’s the “orchestration by ranges” approach we discus in the book. The CSO is such a lucid orchestra, and Wicki knew exactly how to use that clarity in service of Shore’s precise, contained sound. It’s was a remarkable pairing!

Ravinia presents the best that festival atmospheres offer. A concert like this brings out families, dates, wild-haired hippies, buttoned-down businessmen. It’s quite a diverse sea of humanity! Nearly 20,000 people attended over the course of the two performances. Our supply of books sold out approximately 10 minutes into the second night, so I spent the rest of the evening signing programs, ticket stubs, wine bottles, and arms! I’m glad the people that weren’t able to get their hands on a copy of the book were good natured about it, and I hope they’ll head off to Amazon ASAP!

I was actually shocked at how many people lined up for the book … including many people from the blog and from Twitter who came to say “hello!” The Tolkien gang from last spring’s Wheaton lectures was there as well, but perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening was the appearance of my translator from Poland in 2009. He was in the States for a trip to New York, but had seen the concert in Chicago advertised and decided to reroute his schedule. If that’s not a testament to the power of this music, I don’t know what is.

September should be a good month around these parts. I'll be back with a couple of announcements later down the line, and of course, you all know about Shore's Lord of the Rings Symphony being released on September 13 (available right HERE on Amazon). And if you'd like to hear the performance a few days early, Bavarian Radio Klassik will be broadcasting the entire work on Sunday, September 4 at 4:00 (local German time). Details and links will be located on the BR-KLASSIK home page.

Before I wrap this post up, please enjoy a couple of video from the Chicago Fellowship performance. Many thanks to Guillaume for sending these in!


See you soon for more announcements!

Howard Shore has just done a new interview with Classic FM that covers his work on The Lord of the Rings and the upcoming Hobbit films. It's not a lengthy piece, but there's some excellent insight included ... especially for those starving for a little Hobbit update!

Listen to Part One HERE
Listen to Part Two HERE
Listen to Part Three HERE

Last October, David Morgan did a terrific story on the Radio City performance of TTT for CBS News. Of course, when a story like this is created, there's always footage that doesn't make it to the final presentation. Today, Morgan posted his unused B-roll footage on YouTube, and I thought you might enjoy a look. This gives you a great sense of what it's like to be on-stage for one of these massive performances.

Morgan's write-up from the YouTube page is below the video.

Last night's book-signing at Ravinia was fantastic; and, of course, the performance was magnificent. Tonight we get to do it all again ... though I may treat myself to a nap before heading back up to Highland Park. Remember I'll be at Ravinia Gifts from 6:45 to 7:20. I'd love to see you there!

The article below is actually an older piece: it originally ran on July 26. However, I've only recently discovered it, and it's certainly a fine prelude to tonight's festivities.

I always love reading write-ups from the performers' points-of-view. This piece originated right HERE, on the Chicago Chorale's official website. Enjoy!

Thursday and Friday, August 18-19, Chicago Chorale will join forces with the Lakeside Singers, the Chicago Children’s Choir, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Ludwig Wicki, to perform the soundtrack in a showing of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings at Ravinia Park. I fully expect that the park, and the pavilion, will fill to capacity both nights. 

Electronics being what they are, these days, it appears to be a matter of pressing a few keys, to eliminate the musical soundtrack, while leaving dialogue and all other elements of the soundscape intact, and replace it with live performance. Coordinating the live performance with the film, however, matching everything up frame by frame, is a daunting challenge. The conductor has presented this very program several times, with numerous orchestras and choruses; none of the rest of us have ever done it, however, and we will need to be on our toes at all times. The entire movie has only forty minutes of vocal music, but that vocal music occurs, here and there, in major scenes as well as in limited, eight-bar phrases, throughout the performance. The full score, which I am studying and which I will use in leading rehearsals, has all of the music for the entire film, and weighs about five pounds; the choral scores have only the voice parts, with no accompaniment and only minimal orchestral cueing. The singers must count bars for pages at a time, before suddenly entering , often at a forte, at the extremes of their vocal ranges, frequently at breakneck tempos. Meters constantly change, as do tempo markings; and the singers must perform in such languages as Orc and Elvish, which are written in the score in something similar to what a middle school student might use if he were asked to spell out street slang, rather than in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), which singers are trained to read. Adding insult to injury—the font seems intended to look like Elvish runes—very decorative, but not much good for speed reading! 

Vocal demands are tremendous. In such scenes as the Mines of Moria, the choir is divided into as many as twelve parts, with basses singing page after page of low D’s while the first sopranos hang out on high A’s and B’s, all at fortissimo levels. 

I have been watching the film, and listening to a recording of the sound track, in preparation for our first rehearsal (we begin Monday evening, August 1, and meet nearly every day up to the performances). In the past, when I have watched the film, I have not paid much attention to the music; I have known it is there, and have appreciated the skill with which it augments the viewing experience, but I have left it in the background—which after all is where it belongs. Now that I am studying it, I realize, more with each exposure, how brilliantly it has been composed, and how masterfully it has been woven into the total fabric of the experience. I have heard that the composer, Howard Shore, spent three full years composing and preparing the music for the three films in the trilogy, and I am not in the least surprised– in its way, his task has been fully as complicated and all-encompassing as Bach’s task in composing the St. Matthew Passion. This is magnificent stuff. 

I don’t think I need to promote the performance– people are very excited about it, and I just hope they are not turned away at the gates, after driving from all points in the Chicagoland area to attend the performances. Nonetheless, I urge you to look at your calendars for August 18-19; if you can come and hear it, I’m sure you will agree with me that this is a stunning accomplishment, for the orchestra, the choruses, and the conductor. And the movie isn’t bad, either.

Howe Records will have a busy autumn. Next up after the September release of The Lord of the Rings Symphony will be Howard Shore's original score to Martin Scorsese's Hugo. No date is currently listed, but the film itself is due November 23.

Harmonia Mundi, which distributes Howe Records, added their placeholder webpage for the album yesterday.

Shore's music for Hugo will record later this year.

Learn more about Hugo HERE.

Officially official! Also, the Complete Recordings will be back in stock in the coming months! See all below, and catch the original press release right HERE.

A couple of fantastic articles on next week's Ravinia concerts appeared online today. First up, a ChicagoNow.com overview:

Lord of the Rings Fans Will Want to Make the Quest to Chicago's Ravinia Festival for an Epic Event 

By Carole Kuhrt Brewer

Chicago, Tuesday, August 9, 2011. Fans of The Lord of the Rings series should start making plans for an epic quest through the forests and over the ravines of Chicago's North Shore to Highland Park for a special event featuring the film, The Lord of the Rings-The Fellowship of the Ring, accompanied by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. 

The CSO, as part of their summer residency at Ravinia Festival, will conclude their summer season with two movie nights featuring the film and live music on Thursday, August 18 and Friday, August 19. 

For this momentous occasion, the Orchestra has moved their popular Friday Night at the Movies Series north to Highland Park. The beloved CSO movie series taps into the long history of symphonic music in the movies by using their full orchestra to play the score from selected movies while the movie is projected on a screen. 

Conductor Ludwig Wicki will be making his Ravinia debut performing the Oscar-winning score from The Lord of the Rings-The Fellowship of the Ring by Howard Shore accompanying the complete film. The movie will be projected on a giant video screen on the lawn and in the pavilion. The performances will also feature soprano Kaitly Lusk, alto Henry Griffin, The Lakeside Singers, Chicago Chorale and the Chicago Children's Choir. 

Tickets. Tickets are $50 for the pavilion; $25 lawn or $65 for a ticket and dining package. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit Ravinia.org or call the Ravinia Box Office at 847-266-5100. Kids under 15 as well as high school and college students with valid student I.D.s are free on the lawn at all classical concerts. 

Special Guest Chef. Ravinia’s guest chef series continues on the evenings of August 18 and 19 with Thomas Bowman, executive chef from iNG visiting the festival’s Park View restaurant. Reservations can be made, in advance, by calling 847-432-7550 or reserving a table online at Ravinia.org. 

Book signing. Prior to both performances author Doug Adams, who penned the book The Music of the Lord of the Rings, will participate in book-signings starting at 6:45P.m. in front of Ravinia Gifts. 

Time. The park opens at 5p.m. The performance begins at 7:30p.m. both evenings. Thursday, August 18 and Friday, August 19, 2011.

Location. Ravinia Festival is located at Lake Cook and Green Bay roads in Highland Park, IL. Parking is available in the Ravinia parking lot adjacent to the park on Green Bay Rd. until full. Shuttles are provided from Metra parking lots at Ravinia and Highland Park.

Public Transportation. Check the Metra north lines for trains stopping at Ravinia Park. Otherwise patrons can exit the train at the Braeside stop and walk north about 1/3 of a mile to the park.

And this wonderful piece on Maestro Ludwig Wicki ran in the Sun Times today as well:

CSO works its musical magic on ‘Rings’ 

By DOROTHY ANDRIES 

Conductor Ludwig Wicki fell in love with movie music when he heard the film scores of famed Italian composer Ennio Morricone. 

“I was 16 and after hearing his music, I became interested in film soundtracks,” said the Swiss conductor, when reached by telephone in his home town of Lucerne. After that he discovered another significant Italian Nino Rota, who composed for the movies of Federico Fellini and scored all Francis Ford Coppola’s “Godfather” films. 

Wicki will be on the podium at the Ravinia Festival pavilion for two nights Aug. 18 and 19, conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Howard Shore’s complete Academy Award winning score for “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” while the three-hour film is being shown. Choral parts will be performed by the Lakeside Singers, the Chicago Chorale and the Chicago Children’s Choir. 

Playing to the film 

Wicki first conducted that score in what is called live-to-projection in 2008 in Lucerne and since then has performed it 30 times. “I did it with my orchestra,” he said “the 21st Century Orchestra. It’s made up free lance musicians who love movies and movie music.” Since it was founded a decade ago, the orchestra had presented sold-out concerts of film scores throughout Europe, but only in 2008 did they venture to play a score live as a film was being show. 

Since then Wicki has given live-to-projection performances of the “Fellowship” score with the Munich Symphony, the Krakow Sinfonietta, the Wolf Trap Festival Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony, Winnipeg Symphony, and now, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival. 

But how does a conductor coordinate the music of a live orchestra with the on-screen image? 

In the past Hollywood and every film studio recorded live music for their films with the aid of a click-track. The conductor synchronized his baton with a series of metronome-like audio cues coinciding with the moving image. Laterly, however, conductors, Wicki included, have been using a computer system with visual cues.”It utilizes a series of streamers, punches, and flashes, so I can keep the beat where it should be with the film,” he explained. 

Wicki’s career is not limited to film scores. He began as a trombone player and at some point he studied privately CSO trombonist Frank Crisafulli, at Northwestern University in Evanston. For nine years he was a member of the Lucerne Symphony and Opera Orchestra. 

Musician with brass

His love of chamber music inspired him to establish the San Marco Brass and the Philharmonic Brass Quintet in Switzerland and their repertoire included brass music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. After nine years as an orchestra member, he began to study conducting and is now music director of the Palace Chapel of Lucerne and Kapellmeister of the Hofkirke in Lucerne, where he leads choral and orchestral concerts. “It is the main church in Lucerne,” he said. “It has two towers and is very beautiful.” 

Canadian-born Howard Shore has scored some 80 films since 1979, including “The Silence of the Lambs,” “The Last of the Mohicans,” and “Philadelphia.” It was not until 2001 that his vast symphonic score for “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings” won him his first Academy Award. In 2003 he won two more Oscars for “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.” 

The North American debut of his “Fellowship” score live to projection was given in April 2008 by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of one of his biggest fans. You guessed it — Ludwig Wicki.

Great stuff! Please be sure to click over to the original articles as well. ... And Ludwig, if you're reading this, we can't wait to see you and Beatrice next week!

I'm still holding on to an exciting announcement that ought to revealed later this month, though it's already leaked in some quieter corners of the internet. If you're really dedicated, you may be able to track it down. No, that's not a challenge!

But it's now well into August, and high-time we get the new Discussion Board up and running. Happily, Ravinia has just announced its new three-part contest, so we have something great to hang a new thread on!








And don't forget that I'll be signing The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films at 6:45 p.m. before the concerts on both the 18th and the 19th. Look for me in Ravinia Gifts, the official gift shop. I'll also be in attendance at the performances both nights as well (no sign-and-dash for me!), so come say "hello!"

I'm no Groupon expert, so I'm hardly qualified to parse the following ... but it sounds like there's a good deal to be had! If you're still on the Ravinia fence, maybe this will tip you over. Anyway, it appears you can follow in the hallowed footsteps of Fruffy the dancing bear, so what's not to love?

See more HERE. And if you're in the area, please stop by to say "hello." Even if you already own the book, it would be nice to put some faces with names.