Stories » How 'Youth' Composer David Lang Snuck Classical Music Into Oscar Race / The Wrap

Stories for September 17, 2019

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    PRI: Echoes screens Rob Simonsen's solo debut, Reveries, and talks with the veteran film composer
     
    Posted At : September 16, 2019 5:07 PM

    Sometimes, if you want to live the dream, you need to let the dream come to you. Just ask composer Rob Simonsen, who began playing the piano at a young age, picking out melodies he heard in his parents' record collection, before he began composing for himself. "I daydreamed a lot when I was young," he remembers. "I'd sit at the piano, and it was very much about escape: letting my mind wander, exploring." Nonetheless, Simonsen's deep habit of daydreaming is at last gratifyingly indulged on his long-awaited solo debut RÊVERIES, announced today for a September 6th release date on Sony Music Masterworks. It's an elegant, affecting collection which puts the piano – though not just any piano – in the spotlight, furnishing it with blissful embellishments, both electronic and analogue. The announcement of the album comes along with the new video for the album track "Coeur", directed by Simonsen himself and premiered via Stationary Travels. "It's quite the return to my roots," Simonsen says, "sitting and improvising, having it be emotive and cathartic. I didn't sketch anything in advance, nor come at it from an intellectual perspective. It started by chasing a feeling while recording." The album is now available for preorder.  Watch the new video for "Coeur" here. Simonsen recorded RÊVERIES with what he calls "this magical beast of a piano" in four 2-3-week sessions over the course of a year, letting his mind drift for up to an hour at a time, just as he had as a child, before using the most rewarding excursions as the foundations for more formal, complex pieces. As he composed for brass, for strings, for choir, he reveled simultaneously in Paris' picturesque winter or marveled at the studio's old school recording methodology, one Neff suggested had occasionally been "forgotten" amid the contemporary shift to digital recording. Nonetheless, Simonsen kept things simple: he stuck largely to traditional song forms and simple melodies, "but," he says, "rendered in a – hopefully – more unique, processed way. I wanted to keep it classic but forward-thinking."  That said, RÊVERIES' title is indicative of something more profound: of allowing things to unfold in their own time, and of their own nature. Not that Simonsen lacks ambition: since the early 2000s, he's worked on an expansive list of film soundtracks, among them Foxcatcher, Nerve, The Way, Way Back and most recently Jason Reitman's The Front Runner and Rupert Wyatt's Captive State. There have been collaborations, too, notably with Mychael Danna – including 500 Days Of Summer – and contributions to Life Of Pi and Moneyball, as well as, earlier, outings under the name Frozen Light, encouraged by Keith Kenniff (Helios, Goldmund). But Simonsen's been biding his time since an early age, quietly nursing the artistic flights of fancy in which he'd step out from behind the screen. When the stars finally aligned, he knew, these would seem rather less fanciful. CLICK HER FOR Echoes PAGE

  • Women Warriors, The Voices of Change: Chapter 9: Seeking Justice and Equality
     
    Posted At : September 16, 2019 12:00 AM

    Women Warriors: The Voices of Change multimedia concert performed by Orchestra Moderne NYC, under the direction of Amy Andersson, features the music of eight renowned female film composers and presents 800 years of women fighting for human rights and equality. This 80-minute interactive experience is a socially and culturally relevant world premiere concert which includes historical visuals from the past to present day. Women Warriors: The Voices of Change celebrates the strength and heroism of female global activists fighting for human, civil, and minority rights, environmental causes, and gender equality. Orchestra Moderne NYC and Conductor/Producer Amy Andersson team with composers Nathalie Bonin, Miriam Cutler, Anne-Kathrin Dern, Sharon Farber, Mandy Hoffman, Penka Kouneva, Starr Parodi, and Lolita Ritmanis, who together have created a rich and cinematic orchestral experience in seventeen world premiere pieces that inspire hope and courage for women and girls around the world. Special guest artists include; Afghan rapper/songwriter Sonita Alizadeh, fifteen year old singer/songwriter Isolde Fair, and violinist Nathalie Bonin. Iranian human rights activist and author Masih Alinejad is the honored guest speaker. CLICK HERE for today's 9.16.2019 featured Podcast via PRX ‘Chapter 9: ‘Seeking Justice and Equality' with music by Sharon Farber and Anne-Kathrin Dern. The opening theme music for this podcast was provided by Penka Kouneva Sharon Farber is a four time Emmy Award Nominated Film, TV and concert music composer. Farber is a true believer in Hans Christian Andersen's quote; "When words fail, music speaks" and she is honored to be a part of the Women Warriors, Voices of Change concert. Always drawn to human stories, she feels privileged to be able to musically communicate the teaching and moral of these narratives and shine light on the human experience. For Chapter Nine - ‘Seeking Justice and Equality, Farber wrote - "Say Their Names", which highlights the three founders of Black Lives Matter. Farber says that she cannot imagine the heartache of losing a child, and says from this experience, a new, strong and determined voice of change will emerge, with a call for human dignity and respect for all life. Join us at New York's Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center - September 20 2019 at 8:00pm for this historical and stunning concert experience which celebrates the strength and heroism of female global activists fighting for human and civil rights, environmental causes, and gender equality. Narration for this podcast by Max Horowitz. This content, as well as the related podcast, are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) for redistribution and adaptation. CLICK HERE FOR Medium

  • Nicola Benedetti talks 'Marsalis' with Radio Purdue
     
    Posted At : September 11, 2019 12:00 AM

    New sounds and releases featuring Zuill Bailey, Nicola Benedetti, and Arcomusical in Brahms, Marsalis, and Eric Cole! 
    Listen via PRX Released on Decca, Nicola Benedetti's new album, featuring the violin concertos of Glazunov and Shostakovich is a journey between two different, yet connected, concertos for the violin. Glazunov's glittering 1904 work is separated from his pupil Shostakovich's 1947 concerto, not only by 40 years, but also by several landmark events in history: the Russian Revolution, Stalin's Terror and the Second World War. Benedetti performs these two works with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Kirill Karabits. This is the second album that Nicola Benedetti has recorded with BSO and Kirill Karabits and follows the hugely successful The Silver Violin. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d} p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d}

  • Camila Meza's 'Awaken' makes Pisa's Punto Radio - animajazz
     
    Posted At : September 10, 2019 12:00 AM

    In the episode n ° 882 of "ANIMAJAZZ", conceived and conducted by BRUNO POLLACCI , aired TUESDAY 10th September at 20.30, on PUNTORADIO, also in streaming on www.puntoradio.fm and in immediate podcast is Camila Meza's 'Awaken' from her album Ambar. We remind you that "ANIMAJAZZ" can be heard TUESDAY at 8.30 pm in an immediate podcast on http://animajazz.eu and in streaming on www.puntoradio.fmand the "DOWNLOAD" of the episode can be made, free of charge, from the "ANIMAJAZZ" website, podcasts area. Good listening. "ANIMAJAZZ" is in collaboration with the PISA ACADEMY OF ART , Pisa.    SEE Punto Radio - animajazz PLAYLIST

  • Ola Onabule's 'Dark Matter' from 'The Peace That Deafens' makes Pisa's Punto Radio - animajazz
     
    Posted At : September 10, 2019 12:00 AM

    In the episode n ° 882 of "ANIMAJAZZ", conceived and conducted by BRUNO POLLACCI , aired TUESDAY 10th September at 20.30, on PUNTORADIO, also in streaming on www.puntoradio.fm and in immediate podcast is Ola Onabule's 'Dark Matter' from 'The Peace That Deafens.' We remind you that "ANIMAJAZZ" can be heard TUESDAY at 8.30 pm in an immediate podcast on http://animajazz.eu and in streaming on www.puntoradio.fmand the "DOWNLOAD" of the episode can be made, free of charge, from the "ANIMAJAZZ" website, podcasts area. Good listening. "ANIMAJAZZ" is in collaboration with the PISA ACADEMY OF ART.  SEE Punto Radio - animajazz PLAYLIST p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d}

  • Ola Onabule's 'POINT LESS' is an album that calls the listener to action / SOULTRACKS
     
    Posted At : September 9, 2019 12:00 AM

    On Point Less, singer/songwriter Ola Onabule makes music that is both timeless and timely. Point Less is timeless in the sense that Onabule embraces a sound that his defiantly analog. The tracks on the album fuse jazz, funk and elements of African, Caribbean and Brazilian bossa nova, just to name a few. He employs a top notch band on a project that takes listeners back to a time when musicians came together to create under one roof. The themes that Onabule addresses on this album, such as xenophobia, warfare, environmental degradation and political corruption, possess a timeless quality as well. Marvin Gaye addressed those themes in one of music's most timeless works of art. If anything, the tone of the music, the passion that Onabule endows upon the lyrics, and the stories that he tells in these tunes reflect an understanding that the urgency of the times has increased while the world's understanding of the challenges and willingness to meet them has not. That rage and sense of being perplexed comes through poignantly on the cut "Exit Wounds," where Onabule sings from the standpoint of a mass shooting victim speaking to the us from the other side. Point Less is an album that calls the listener to action. You may want to dance, or you want to march. But Onabule's latest will make it hard for folks to stay in their seats. Strongly Recommended. read the full SOUL TRACKS review

  • Sharon Isbin shares 'Souvenirs of Spain and Italy' with classical radio
     
    Posted At : September 9, 2019 12:00 AM

    The Grammy Award-winning Pacifica Quartet and multiple Grammy-winning guitarist Sharon Isbin join forces for Souvenirs of Spain & Italy, an uncommon album of music for strings and guitar on Cedille Records, from the Baroque to the mid-20th century. In their first collaboration on disc, the artists play works for guitar and strings by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Vivaldi, and Boccherini        "It's really beautiful music with a tremendous amount of variety," Isbin says.      In conjunction, the guitarist has made herself available to classical radio networks and stations around the US. Watch for our tweets throughout the day.

Top 10 for Sep

  • Jon Batiste :

    Anatomy of Angels

     In the fall of 2018, pianist and bandleader Jon Batiste played a six-night residency at the historic Village Vanguard in downtown New York City.
  • Ola Onabule :

    POINT LESS

     Socially conscious singer/songwriter Ola Onabulé has built an enviable career as an international touring performer and has now turned his attention to the North American market with a newly recorded collection of original songs.
  • Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Kahane-Batjer :

    Jalbert, Bach, Part & Vasks

     Making their first appearance on BIS, Margaret Batjer and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) cross great  distances in both time and space in this programme of  concertante violin works.
  • John Coltrane :

    Blue World

      In 1964, the National Film Board of Canada asked John Coltrane to record the soundtrack for a French-language film titled "Le chat dans le sac" ("The Cat in the Bag").
  • Nicola Benedetti :

    Marsalis -Violin Concerto in D, Fiddle Dance Suite

     Nicola Benedetti's new album on Decca Classics features premiere recordings of two works written especially for her by jazz musician Wynton Marsalis: Violin Concerto in D and Fiddle Dance Suite for Solo Violin.
  • John Lunn :

    Downton Abbey OST

     This high profile movie, continuing the story of Lord Grantham and the Crawley family is in cinemas around the world from September.
  • Orchestra Moderne NYC, Amy Andersson :

    Women Warriors: The Voices of Change

     Hear Orchestra Moderne NYC debut the world premiere of Women Warriors: The Voices of Change, coming fall 2019 to New York City.
  • Paula Cole :

    Revolution

     Paula Cole's tenth album, Revolution, fulfills the promise of her 1994 debut.
  • Ramin Karimloo :

    From Now On

     Tony® Award-nominated singer and performer RAMIN KARIMLOO today releases his second full-length album, From Now On, via Sony Masterworks Broadway.
  • Sharon Isbin, Pacifica Quartet :

    Souvenirs of Spain and Italy

     Pacifica Quartet and Guitarist Sharon Isbin Offer ‘Souvenirs of Spain and Italy' on Cedille Records In their first collaboration on disc, the artists play works for guitar and strings by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Vivaldi, and Boccherini   The Grammy Award-winning Pacifica Quartet and multiple Grammy-winning guitarist Sharon Isbin join forces for Souvenirs of Spain & Italy, an uncommon album of music for strings and guitar from the Baroque to the mid-20th century.

How 'Youth' Composer David Lang Snuck Classical Music Into Oscar Race / The Wrap

Posted: January 9, 2016 12:00 AM | By: Admin
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Like Frank Zappa, Yale professor David Lang is a highbrow composer with a taste for the bizarre, and an artist who has smuggled difficult work into mass culture. "Paradoxically, people are willing to hear stranger things in film than in the real world - film audiences are more open to music than a music audience is," said Lang, whose art song "Simple Song #3" in Paolo Sorrentino's "Youth" is a contender for the Best Original Song Oscar.

Instead of coming in at the end of filming, like most composers, Lang wrote the tune beforehand. The idea was to define the entire life's arc of Michael Caine‘s character, himself a composer, from lovestruck youth to rueful age. "The movie is saying the song is a character, almost, like a time capsule for him," said Lang, 58, who projected himself into the 80-something character as passionately as any Method actor.

READ THE FULL Wrap INTERVIEW 

Crossover Media Projects with Soundtracks

  • Soundtracks

    Valley of the Boom

    Valley of the Boom explores the dot-com era during Silicon Valley's unprecedented tech boom of the 1990s and subsequent bust. The six-part limited series tells the wildly true stories of the epic browser wars and the companies that shaped the internet.  Starring Bradley Whitford, Steve Zahn, Lamorne Morris, John Karna, Dakota Shapiro, Oliver Cooper and John Murphy, Valley of the Boom makes its debut on National Geographic Sunday, January 13.  

    Created, directed and executive produced by Matthew Carnahan, Valley of the Boom is National Geographic's newest American docudrama. 

  • Soundtracks

    Roma

    Sony Music, Netflix, Participant Media, and Esperanto Filmoj present the Motion Picture Soundtrack of ROMA, which is available through all digital platforms, on the same day that the film premieres on Netflix.

    Curated by the director Alfonso Cuarón and the soundtrack producers Lynn Fainchtein and Randall Poster, the soundtrack of ROMA brings us back to the sonic Mexico of the 1970s, when the famous XEW, a reference of Mexican radio, transmitted English pop and rock, while gradually introducing the new Mexican pop, through performers like José José, Juan Gabriel, and Rigo Tovar, musical icons that in the present, have remained as references of Mexican and Latin American music.

  • Soundtracks

    Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert

    Drawing nearly 10 million viewers, NBC's highly anticipated special event "Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert" received rave reviews for its production, calling it "genuinely thrilling" (The New York Times), "truly transcendent" (Hollywood Reporter) and "the best live TV musical yet" (The Daily Beast). Today, Masterworks Broadway is excited to release the Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert – Original Soundtrack of the NBC Television Event, which features lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, via all digital service providers. 

  • Soundtracks

    Call Me By Your Name

    Madison Gate Records and Sony Classical proudly announce the release of CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), a mix of 80s pop, classical compositions & songs by singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens, including two new songs written specifically for the film. The soundtrack to the new film by Luca Guadagnino will be released on CD on November 17. The film will be released in the U.S. on November 24.

    54 TOTAL
    SYND:     The Score, Afropop Worldwide, The Romantic Hours
    Direct: MOOD, Stingray
    Markets include: New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Portland, St. Louis, Tucson, Barcelona MI(Statewide)
    INTER: Canada, UK, Spain Romania
    Online: Vogue, New York Times, The New Yorker, Music To Heal the Heart, Bustle, Jezebel, Out, Pitchfork, Jazz From Gallery 41, Vulture, theguardian, independent

  • Soundtracks

    A Bad Mom's Christmas

    A Bad Moms Christmas follows our three under-appreciated and over-burdened women as they rebel against the challenges and expectations of the Super Bowl for moms: Christmas. And if creating a more perfect holiday for their families wasn't hard enough, they have to do all of that while hosting and entertaining their own mothers. By the end of the journey, our moms will redefine how to make the holidays special for all and discover a closer relationship with their mothers.

    15 TOTAL
    SYND:     The Score
    Direct: SiriusXM, MOOD
    Markets include: Wash DC, St. Louis, Portland, Claremont, Cupertino CA, Marquette, Astoria OR, Abilene TX, Fairbanks AK
    INTER: Canada, Romania
    Online: Music To Heal the Heart

  • Soundtracks

    The Breadwinner

    Sony Classical proudly announces the release of THE BREADWINNER (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) with an original score by Academy Award®-winning composer Mychael Danna and Emmy nominated composer Jeff Danna. The soundtrack will available digitally and on CD November 17. The film will also be released in the U.S. on November 17th. The Breadwinner tells the story of Parvana, an 11-year-old girl growing up under the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. When her father is wrongfully arrested, Parvana disguises herself as a boy in order to support her family. With dauntless perseverance, Parvana draws strength from the stories her father told her, and ultimately risks her life to discover if he is still alive. Equal parts thrilling and enchanting, The Breadwinner is a timely and inspiring tale about the transcendent power of stories, and their potential to unite and heal us all.

    27 TOTAL
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Louisville, Sacramento, Reno, Honolulu, CA(Statewide), Canada
    Online: CalmRadio, Musicas Imaginadas, Global Roots and Culture, Soundtrack Geek  

  • Soundtracks

    Murder on the Orient Express

    Sony Music proudly announces the release of MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) with an original score by Academy Award®-nominated composer Patrick Doyle, including a song performed by Michelle Pfeiffer with lyrics by Kenneth Branagh. What starts out as a lavish train ride through Europe quickly unfolds into one of the most stylish, suspenseful and thrilling mysteries ever told. From the novel by best-selling author Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express tells the tale of thirteen strangers stranded on a train, where everyone's a suspect. One man must race against time to solve the puzzle before the murderer strikes again.

    18 TOTAL
    SYND:     The Score
    Direct: SiriusXM, MOOD, Stingray
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cleveland, Portland, Detroit, Albuquerque, San Antonio, El Paso, MI(Statewide), AL(Statewide), Canada
    Online: GURU