While we wait for Middle-earth to begin making noise (and music!) once again, here's an image I dug up in my recent research. Thought it might be of interest to certain readers here. Can anyone ID it?

I’ve been looking for something to hang an Ongoing Discussion board on for a few days now. Here’s a good candidate: Howard Shore’s score for A Dangerous Method has won the 2011 Genie for Best Original Score! (The Genie is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television each year; read more about the awards HERE.)

You can read the full rundown of this year's Genies HERE or HERE,but I imagine this part will be of particular interest to blog readers:

Cronenberg was also in good spirits. Accepting the Best Original Score award for an absent Howard Shore, his friend and frequent collaborator, he joked: “Howard is in New Zealand working on The Hobbit. It’s kind of a sequel to A Dangerous Method.”

In other news, I'm hoping to turn my attention fully toward Middle-earth sometime this summer. Things should slowly gather momentum until they hit full speed later in the year. (Amazing things are already happening in NZ!) While all that gets moving, I've agreed to pursue another rather large project. It's an entirely different type of piece from the Middle-earth work, but it sort of ties into the pieces I've been doing for the past four or five months. I don't want to say too much right now -- primarily because I'm still making some of the overarching creative decisions -- but suffice it to say that between the Hugo writing and a piece on Puccini and Edison that I just finished for the Seattle Opera, my desk is absolutely overflowing with research materials ... as is the kitchen table, the nightstand, etc. I'm not sure what the timeline for this new project will look like, but I'll let you know as soon as I do! (This is all in addition to three or four projects that have been developing since last fall that are still in the pipeline.)

So we're in the 'inchoate' months right now. I guess that's usual for this time of year. Everything is gestating and forming. But enjoy the calm while you can -- once things get cranking later this year, it's going to be quite a ride!

I'm not sure what's proper. In the stage world you're never supposed to say "good luck" -- "break a leg" is much preferred. (You're also not supposed to mention Macbeth, though that seems highly unlikely to come up in this situation.) The opera world depends on "Toi Toi Toi" to ensure good fortune. Someone once told me that Australians use "chookas" for the same purpose -- I rather like that one.

At any rate, best wishes to Hugo and all those representing it at the Oscars this weekend. Chookas three tois and a broken leg to you all!

Wait, I'm not sure that came out right ...

Warmly,

Doug

Fellowship of the Ring Performances March 3-4 in Taiwan

NEW YORK, Feb. 20, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia/ — New York-based Erik Ochsner will conduct the Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra in the Asian premiere performance of the Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring: Live to Projection (Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts in Taiwan). The performances feature Howard Shore’s Academy Award(R)-winning score performed live, synchronized to film.

In 2011, Erik led successful performances of Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring: Live to Projection (FOTR) with the St. Louis Symphony and Tampere Philharmonic (Finland). In February 2012, Erik made his Iceland Symphony Orchestra debut conducting the Lord of the Rings Symphony. In March 2012, he makes his debut with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra with live-to-projection performances of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. Future 2013 engagements include Adelaide, Athens, Berlin, Indianapolis, London, Melbourne, Milwaukee, Nurnberg, Ottawa, Stuttgart and Sydney.

Erik conducted the Chinese premiere of Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire at the 2007 Beijing Festival of Contemporary Music. He has worked closely with the composer Tan Dun for worldwide productions and workshops, including Tea: A Mirror of Soul and as assistant conductor and chorus master for the Shanghai workshop of Tan Dun’s The First Emperor, a Metropolitan Opera commission.

Erik assisted the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s world premiere performances of The Map with Yo-Yo Ma in Boston, Tanglewood, and Carnegie Hall. Tan Dun personally invited him to conduct members of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic in the composer’s Secret Land for 12 Celli and Concerto for Six.

Erik is music director and founder of the SONOS Chamber Orchestra. They have performed six U.S. premieres, and two world premieres. This season Erik will conduct SONOS in the U.S. premiere of Fredrik Sixten’s Requiem, plus works by Jon Leifs, and Johann Christian Bach. www.SONOSchamberorch.org

The music of The Lord of the Rings is among film music’s most complex and comprehensive works. This unique performance sets the score to the film, but allows the music to bear the narrative weight, creating a new and dramatic live concert experience.

“This amazing music and fantastic drama have moved me since day one: it is always thrilling and moving,” Ochsner described. “What an amazing satisfaction at the end of each and every performance!” 

KAOHSIUNG MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, KAOHSIUNG, TAIWAN Saturday/Sunday March 3-4 

Tickets: http://www.ksaf.com.tw/2012/program_detail.php?fno=38 

 www.erikochsner.com

Howard Shore sat down with Jim Svejda on Classical KUSC Radio last night to talk about Hugo, A Dangerous Method and more. You can stream the audio on KUSC's site right HERE (mp3 downloads are also available).

From KUSC's writeup:

The LA Times spoke with Howard Shore today regarding his recent Academy Award nomination. Included was a little nugget I think you might find interesting. Excerpts below:

Some things never get old. Just ask composer Howard Shore, who woke to a phone call very early Tuesday morning in Hawaii and learned he had earned his fourth Academy Award nomination. "It's always thrilling," Howard said of being nominated, this time for his original score for Martin Scorsese's "Hugo."

The film, about an orphan living in a train station in 1930s Paris, leads the Oscar pack with 11 nominations, and it marks Shore's sixth film with Scorsese. "It's a wonderful collaboration," Howard said of working with the director. "I think [Scorsese] works with music the way he works with all his other collaborators: I think he casts well, and then he shapes and guides and inspires."

In writing the music for "Hugo," Shore drew inspiration from the film's time and setting, 1930s Paris. "It's a very rich period of music," Shore said. "It's the exuberance and the thrill of making movies in this early period with this new technology. … It's a very rich world to write in and compose in, and it's very inspiring to me."

[...] 

After his layover in Hawaii, Shore is headed to New Zealand, where he is working on "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" with director Peter Jackson.

The Academy Award nomination for BEST SCORE of 2011 are in:


Ludovic Bource THE ARTIST
Alberto Igelsias TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
John Williams TINTIN
John Williams WAR HORSE

HUGO, incidentally, also garnered nominations for BEST PICTURE, DIRECTING, ADAPTED SCREENPLAY, ART DIRECTION, CINEMATOGRAPHY, SOUND MIXING, SOUND EDITING, COSTUMES, FILM EDITING, VISUAL EFFECTS.

Congratulations to all nominees!

ORIGINAL MUSIC 

THE ARTIST Ludovic Bource
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
HUGO Howard Shore
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY Alberto Iglesias
WAR HORSE John Williams

This is slightly out-of-date, but video interviews are always fun to watch.

Howard Shore and Elizabeth Cotnoir discuss their work on the award-winning score to Hugo.

 

MyDesert.com has a nice little followup on the Palm Springs Film Festival gala, which was held last night (January 7):

"It's wonderful to be back," Shore told emcee Mary Hart backstage. 

Shore is being honored for the score he composed for "Hugo." 

"For me, composition is ... a way to take things that I love and express them through music," Shore said as he accepted the award.

Read the full piece HERE.

As previously reported, Shore was on-hand last night to receive the Frederick Loewe Music Award for his work on Martin Scorsese’s Hugo.

Happy New Year, everyone!

We're finally here: 2012. Every new year is full of exciting possibilities, but if you frequent this blog, you know that this year looks to be especially promising. I was a little quieter than usual during the final months of 2011, and will probably remain a bit guarded through the beginning of 2012, but I have much to say, and will proclaim it all soon enough. In the meantime, let's all enjoy the unlimited promise of a year not yet lived!

While I certainly don't wish to burden the light mood, I do feel we should take a second to recognize the passing of Bob Anderson. If you don't know who Mr. Anderson was, please take a moment to read the linked Wiki page. His artistry contributed not only to The Lord of the Rings films, but also to The Princess Bride, Star Wars, and more. I had brief contact with Mr. Anderson's daughter in September of 2010. He was living in London at that point, and his daughter had heard about the Royal Albert performance of The Return of the King: Live to Projection. Plans were made for him to attend, but he was ultimately not well enough to do so. Nevertheless, this gentleman touched many lives, and I know we'll all send our thoughts to his family.



On a lighter note, today (it's officially just past midnight on January 3 in Chicago) marks the 120th birthday of J.R.R. Tolkien. TheOneRing.net is reminding everyone of the usual 9:00 p.m. salute. I may be a bit early -- and a bit digital -- but: "The Professor!"

Salude!