The Ottawa Citizen is running a piece today regarding the upcoming National Arts Centre Orchestra performances of The Fellowship of the Ring. Thought these tidbits might be of interest:

[Shore] is not giving away much about his approach to the score for The Hobbit except to say, “If you like the scores to the other films, you’ll like the way I’m approaching The Hobbit.” 

He is into the crunch right now on The Hobbit with recording set to begin in August. That pressure prevents him from being in Ottawa for the performance. 

Asked whether some of the music for The Hobbit will hint at the Lord of the Rings, he’s coy. 

“I have crafty little ways of dropping bits here and there. There are characters that are in both, Bilbo, Gandalf, Galadriel and Elrond. It’s so connected to The Lord of the Rings.”

Read the full piece HERE.

Hi folks,

Apologies for being a bit of a ghost around here lately. I did indeed find my way out of the woods last week -- though met this rather ominous dragon-like branch in the process! A sign perhaps?


Weather permitting, I try to walk a few miles each day, just to keep my head clear. It's my chance to catch up on music, listen to a few books or poems, and attempt to keep my complexion at least somewhat ruddier than this blog's color scheme. (In the bleak midwinter my skin tone roughly matches my black-and-white headshot to the right.) But this was a different kind of walk. This out-of-town trip was planned as a preamble to next week's festivities. One week from this Saturday, on July 7 -- that's 7/7, presumably the luckiest day of the year! -- Jill and I will be married. I don't go into my personal life too much on the blog, but since a number of you have been so kind as to ask, I thought I'd let you all know.

Last week we stopped by the Daly Center in downtown Chicago to sign our wedding license. It was a profoundly meaningful experience for us, though hardly romantic. The clerks are didn't seem overly concerned whether or not we understood the lifelong commitment this all entails (we do), but they did make absolutely certain that we weren't related to one another (we aren't!)

Little did I realize that the trip downtown would be the first in a number of contracts I'd sign or negotiate or otherwise discuss in the following days. One of those contracts had been sitting on my desk since June of 2011. It wasn't neglected due to controversial content or untoward haggling, it was simply tied into a chain of events that required a good deal of patience. This morning, June 27, 2012, that contract was placed in the mail. I can't say much about it just yet, but suffice it to say, I have a pretty good sense how this fellow feels:


This is shaping up to be a rather nice summer!

Back soon,

D

It's been quite some time since we've run a Live to Projection review, so big thanks go to Erik Ammerlaan for sending this great review of The Two Towers at De Doelen!

*****

Howard Shore joins this conversation on WQXR's Movies on the Radio via a Skype call from New Zealand around the 42:30 mark. Enjoy!

WQXR's Movies on the Radio meets Slate's Culture Gabfest: OnThursday, May 31 at 7 pm in The Greene Space, host David Garland spoke with Slate's Dana Stevens, Julia Turner and Stephen Metcalf about music and the movies, including a conversation about notable recent and upcoming releases.

Special features included a "Film Scoring 101" segment and a conversation with Academy Award-winning composer Howard Shore, who participated by Skype from New Zealand.

Our discussion is archived below in edited form and will appear on an upcoming installment of the Slate Culture Gabfest.

I'm not sure how many of you are on Facebook, but you should be aware that Howard Shore's score to Cosmopolis now has its own Facebook page. Become a fan today!

And while you're there, be sure to 'like' The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films ... he said repetitively.

I spoke with Edmund Stone last autumn when I was helping with the LOTR West Coast tour and thoroughly enjoyed our chat -- though I was intimidated and humbled by the pictures of musical luminaries past and present that lined the walls of the studio.

Howard Shore recently sat down with Stone to talk about The Lord of the Rings, Silence of the Lambs, Hugo, and more. The embed codes don't seem to want to play nice, so you can access the interview right HERE instead.

I believe this interview is from late December, so don't expect any heavy scoops on Cosmopolis -- which is great! -- or The Hobbit -- which is going to be great! -- but it's an excellent conversation nonetheless.

Attention New Yorkers:

I'm catching up on posts today, so please forgive the fact that this is a slightly out-of-date.

Shore's new Cello Concerto premiered in April, and Allison Silvieus provided a short write-up in The Millbrook Independent:

Cellist Sophie Shao followed Marcovics’ performance in Howard Shore’s 2011 world premiere, Mythic Gardens. The concerto was commissioned for Shao, made financially possible by Linda and Stuart Nelson.  

Shao, native to Houston, Texas, studied with Shirley Trepel, former principal cellist of the Houston Symphony. She received a B.A. in religious studies from Yale and an M.M. from the Yale school of Music. She is a faculty member at Vassar college and Bard College’s Conservatory of Music.  

Shao performs throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. The New York Times praised her “eloquent, powerful” interpretations. According to Peter Laki, visiting professor of music to Bard, she will appear this year as soloist with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Keith Lockhart in performances of the Elgar and Shostakovich concerti two-week tour. She can also be heard on EMI Classics, Bridge Records and on Albany Records.  

While Howard Shore is most well-known for his score of Lord of the Rings, he is an expert in concertos as well. Mythic Gardens “is based on the composer’s feelings upon visiting three sumptuous gardens in Italy—Cimbrone in Ravello on the Amalfi coast, the Medici gardens in Florence and the Villa Litta near Milan,” according to Peter Laki, visiting professor of music to Bard. 

The first movement, Cimbrone was peaceful, yet displayed Shao’s impressive finger movement with sections of quick-tempos as well. The second peace, Medici was similar to Brubeck’s in that it was slow and mellow, achieving a depth of musicality by the orchestra and feeling by the audience. The final Visconti Borromeo Litta ends with a vibrant, full orchestra accompanying Shao.  

The evening ended with two full orchestra concertos by Lutoslawski and Bartók. Hearing the two concertos in one concert was a rare opportunity because one affected the other. Bartók composed in total freedom, whereas Lutoslawski composed during the communist regime of Stalin. ASO performed both well and the connection between the two was evident.  

While the whole night was filled with musicality, Marcovics and Shao were the highlight. Their naturalness as musicians intrigued the audience, who responded in loud praise to both musicians.

The soundtrack album features the songs:

“Long to Live”
Written by Emily Haines, James Shaw, Howard Shore
Performed by Metric

“I Don’t Want to Wake Up”
Written by Emily Haines, James Shaw, Howard Shore
Performed by Metric

 “Call Me Home”
Written by Emily Haines, James Shaw, Howard Shore
Performed by Metric

“Mecca”
Lyrics by Don DeLillo and K’NAAN
Performed by K’NAAN

With the premiere of Shore's Cello Concerto just a week away, I thought maybe it would be interesting to take a quick look at an article from today's (April 20, 2012) Chestnut Hill Local:

I’ll be honest: while I’ve been to hundreds of plays and concerts, I went to an orchestra performance for the first time this year. As a caretaker to an elderly family member, I found myself at the Bryn Athyn Orchestra’s spring matinee performance. In my late 20s, I was certainly one of the youngest people in attendance. 

[...]

As for myself, I think the assertion that there will never be another great classical composer is incredibly arrogant. Perhaps, being so young and still waiting for my chance to stun the world, it’s my naiveté that leaves me so galled. But it seems to me that reflexive assumptions about the impossibility of unknown future greatness would be the death knell of any arts organization. 

Bach, Vivaldi and Mozart, et al, have plenty of company on my iPod: they’re joined by Hans Zimmer, Howard Shore, Yann Tiersen, John Williams and Philip Glass. I would certainly consider attending live performances of music by these and many more living composers. 

Of course, the panel discussion would not have been complete without some hearty vilification of cantankerous critics: “corrosive”, “poisonous” and “a destructive force” were just some of the phrases used to describe injustices at the hands of music writers. Some attendees bemoaned the role of the Inquirer in perpetuating bad criticism.

You can read Alaina Mabaso's full article HERE. Even if I don't agree with every sentiment expressed, it's an intriguing thought piece ... especially framed by the debut of Shore's new concert work.

Hi all,

The question on everyone's lips/fingertips right now is: "when are we going to get some information on the Hobbit's music?" The short of it is, I've been asked to not talk about The Hobbit yet. I can tell you that Howard Shore is working on it, and has been for some time now. I'll even go a step beyond that and tell you that he's made a handful of trips to New Zealand already, and will continue on his "long commute" schedule (a few weeks here, a few weeks there) during the summer. But beyond that, I can't tell you specifics regarding new themes, big moments, etc.

Composing is a very conceptual thing. It's much like writing in that sense. 95% of what one does occurs prior to a physical product, yet that physical product is what one is really creating. (For The Hobbit, that physical product will be scores, parts, and a recording.) I can't imagine being a sculptor -- no matter how much careful planning a sculptor tends to, concept and execution are essentially the same. You chip away the first bit of marble and it's gone, forever dedicated to an immovable goal. That's got to be a lot of pressure ... although the neat, self-contained process must be exhilarating. Music is more like writing a play, perhaps. The final staging is the goal, but most of the creative work happens prior to that point. That's not to suggest that the final staging is any less creative, but in terms of pure percentages, most of the work involves quiet dreaming, paper, graphite, and ink. (Computers de-romanticize my flowery imagery here, but of course they're essential.) For a composer, like a writer, everything that leads to that last 5% of execution is fluid, thus subject to editing, revisions, and whole-scale 're-do's. This is precisely why most composers don't like to speak publicly about works as they're being created. As soon as one says something publicly, the music is in a box, conceptually frozen. That's antithetical to a composer's creative process.

Some of these lessons I learned during the long-gestating The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films. Every once in a while I shared a inchoate idea of mine that suddenly everyone latched onto. And it was tough to go back and explain that I was sharing early notions and that we now had a better, clearer notion of where we were headed. Chronicled, it looks like indecisiveness; it looks messy! The reality of it is, this is how things are created.

Think of it this way: if this were April, 2003 and I was to starting run on about the score to The Return of the King, you'd be hearing about all the male vocalists lined up, and about this new song "Use Well the Days" that was meant to close the score. We all understand the progression of these ideas now, and certainly they haven't been swept under the rug or treated as some sort of secret shame. In fact, the whole point on The Rarities Archive is that these early ideas have their own beauty. But how distracting would it have been to sit down to ROTK in its full glory and find that these elements had been rethought?

Oh, if you prefer a food analogy: they're currently baking you the grandest cake imaginable. I'm not about to start feeding you raw eggs in preparation. :)

Peter Jackson is running a pretty transparent production right now, but note that the script to The Hobbit was created in quiet solitude. The reason he can be transparent now is because the production has entered the execution stage -- the ideas are in place. Later this summer, Shore will likewise cross the terminus into the next stage of his process. At that point, ideas will be in place, music-driven moments will be fully shaped, pacing and architecture will polished, and the music of The Hobbit will be ready to be realized. That also when there will be (considerably!) more to say.

***

I like to keep my current projects in folders on top of the filing cabinet in my office. I realize this sort of defeats the purpose a cabinet, but such is life. Right now there are two folders atop the cabinet: one fat, one thin. The fat folder pertains to my current project, the one I've been hinting about lately. I'll have more to say on that subject soon, probably in May and June. The thin folder is The Hobbit folder. Inside are a few notes, a few ideas. It's a little lean, but it's begun.

I will be on Middle-earth Network Radio's Wardens of Westmarch podcast tomorrow (Tuesday, 4/3) at 2 AM, 11 AM, and 7 PM EST. The Podcast should be available shortly thereafter.