New albums in December

- Lawman. Jerry Fielding. Intrada. - Billy. John Barry. Sony.
- Mutiny on the Bounty. Bronislaw Kaper. FSM.
- Saddle the Wind. Elmer Bernstein, Jeff Alexander. FSM.
- La Vita Che Vorrei. Michele Fedrigotti. CAM.
- The Agony and the Ecstasy. Alex North, Jerry Goldsmith. Varèse. 6th December.
- The Artist Who Did Not Want to Paint. Jerry Goldsmith. Varèse. 6th December.
- Three Coins in the Fountain. Victor Young. Varèse. 6th December.
- Sheena. Richard Hartley. Varèse. 6th December.
- Viva Maria ! / Le Roi de Coeur. Georges Delerue. Varèse. 6th December.
- The Flight of the Phoenix. Marco Beltrami. Varèse. 7th December.
- House of Flying Daggers. Shigeru Umebayashi. Sony. 7th December.
- Earthsea. Jeff Rona. Varèse. 7th December.
- 24. Sean Callery. Varèse. 7th December.
- Carnivàle. Jeff Beal, Lisa Coleman, Wendy Melvoin. Varèse. 7th December.
- Shrek 2 (score). Harry Gregson-Williams. Varèse. 7th December.
- Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Thomas Newman. Sony. 7th December.
- Ray (score). Craig Armstrong. Rhino. 7th December.
- A Very Long Engagement. Angelo Badalamenti. Nonesuch Records. 7th December.
- Farscape. SubVision, Guy Gross. La-La Land. 14th December.

James Cameron, Jeehun Hwang and "Alita"

The next project of the famous director James Cameron in 2.005 will be a new iMax 3D documental called "Aliens of the Deep". The director up with NASA scientists to explore the Mid-Ocean Ridge, a submerged chain of mountains that band the Earth and are home to some of the planet's most unique life forms. This is his second work for iMAX after "Ghost of the Abyss", where with a team of the world's foremost historic and marine experts and friend Bill Paxton, he embarks on an unscripted adventure back to the final grave where nearly 1,500 souls lost their lives almost a century ago, the Titanic, with a brilliant music composed by Joel McNeely.

And following with migration of videogames composers, Cameron is hiring for compose the music of latest documental to Jeehun Hwang, 32 years old korean composer. Hwang began to compose for videogames producers Activision at 1.995 making the music for games like "MechWarriors 2", "Quake", "Apocalypse", "Dark Reign" and many more. He still was work with Cameron in a TV documentary called "Expedition: Bismarck" and seems to be that relation will go for far. Jeehun Hwang is a synthesizer composer, that began to compose his own music with 13 years old, with a rock musical group he founded. After this things, he explores different music styles and makes a solitary acoustic CD with 18 years old, and with this CD, the doors of Activision opened to him. In 1.998 he composed the new logo music for MGM Goldwyn. We stay tuned about this new and young composer in the future.

And back with James Cameron, at last there's a confirmation about his new project. Alter talking about doing "Alien 5", by writting it and "letting" his buddy Ridley Scott direct and then of course there was that whole "True Lies 2" debacle delaired by both "terrorism not being funny any more" and his pal Arnold's Governornator-ship.


"Battle Angel Alita", Yukito Kishiro's great manga graphics novel will have an adaptation made by the James Cameron's hand in writting and directing. Confirmed by director himself during an interview for NPR's Talk of the Nation, Cameron said: "We're in pre-production right now on a project called 'Battle Angel', which is something I've been working on for several years and we're just finishing up the shooting draft right now. I want to dedicate some of my film-making time to environmental themes. We've been designing - it's a big science fiction film." He went on to say "The main character, even though it's a live action film will be done with CG animation," he revealed, "and the second thing that's interesting is we're going to be shooting it in 3D using the stereo imagining system that we've been developing for the documentaries." This film will be the first live action movie with a main character created by CGI.

"Battle Angel Alita" graphic novel tells the story of the people and cyborgs of the Scrap Yard live beneath the flying city of Tiphares, whose inhabitants dump their junk in the Scrap Yard and rules above it's inhabitants. One day doc Ido, a former Tipharean citizen, finds the intact head of young cyborg-girl in a vast pile of scrap. He takes her in and gives her a body and the name Alita. Alita then discovers since long forgotten fighting techniques hidden in her body and decides to become a hunter-warrior like Ido.

The film will release in 2.006. Who will be the music composer for this project? Here at BSOSpirit thinks in a great friend of us, but who knows...

Gabriel Yared will score for another German director

Following the commotion that meant to be withdrawn from a big production such as Troy, once the score was already written and recorded, Gabriel Yared is presently involved in a new music for a film. Ironically, he will be working with another German director, Florian Henckel-Donnersmarck, instead of Troy's Wolfgang Petersen.

After Petersen rejected Yared's score for Troy, the composer went on only with John Altman's request to write some music for Shall We Dance?, the musical comedy starring Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez.

Now, Yared is writing the music for Das Leben der Anderen, a drama directed by Henckel-Donnersmarck which takes place in the last years of a divided Germany. Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, Martina Gedeck and Ulrich Tukur are to feature in this production scheduled for 2005.

Basketball one for Trevor Rabin

Even though his style is so controversial among the fans, Trevor Rabin can't be complain about the lack of work. The friends from Music from the Movies announce that the south african composer has another project in his diary.

This film is "Coach Carter", a film will be directed by Thomas Carter, starring by Samuel L. Jackson in the main role. He plays an universitary basketball trainer that in 1.999, after all the season with an undefeated team, he leaves out at bench all his first-team players because of their bad academic marks. The film will be released at USA in 2.005.

Conrad Pope scores In My Sleep

Many film music conoisseurs still wonder why Conrad Pope doesn't put more of his own music to films... His virtuosity in film scoring has been already credited in more than a film soundtrack, not to mention his brilliant work in Pavilion of Women. Pope, in fact, seems to be more confortable when orchestrating the scores of other well known composers, such as John Williams.

However, he has been asked now to write a score for a new film to open in 2005. It will be In my Sleep, a thriller which has been written, produced and directed by Allen Wolf, starring Stephen Baldwin and Katee Sackoff. The plot is still a mistery, but the movie has already its own website: http://www.inmysleep.com/

IN MEMORIAM: Michel Colombier (1939-2004)

The decease of many film composers is marking a sad record for 2004. Departed masters such as Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein or David Raksin have left together with other less famous composers like Piero Piccioni, Fred Karlin or Manuel Balboa.
Pitiful news came a few days ago concerning the obituaries of Gil Melle and Carlo Rusticelli. Now is the turn for French composer Michel Colombier, whose film scoring period, particularly during the 80s, was indeed a successful one.
Colombier started his film music career in France in 1964. His international fame came with Against All Odds (1984), a film in which rock singer Phil Collins was first nominated to the Oscar for best song. Colombier was then involved in some Hollywood projects such as Purple Rain, New Jack City and Barb Wire.
His award collection includes as well a Golden Globe nomination in 1986 for White Nights, and a César one year before that for Elisa.

Mark Isham labours in two new assignments

Jazz/New Age musician and film composer Mark Isham is not meant to complain about new requests this year... He has been involved by film producers in two new scores. One of them will be a comedy directed by Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential), featuring Cameron Diaz and Toni Collete, playing the role of two very different sisters. The film will be entittled In Her Shoes, and actress Shirley MacLaine is said to play a part in it.

On the other hand, Isham will be scoring Running Scared, a new thriller directed by Wayne Kramer, acting Paul Walker and Chazz Palminteri as the main characters. The plot is about a criminal doing his best to get his gun back, after having been robbed and furthermore used in a crime.

It's an endless job for Harry Gregson-Williams

One wonders how Harry Gregson-Williams can manage to display all his talents in film music scoring... Having been involved in many new projects during the last months, the musician is starting a new collabration with director Tony Scott, already working in Domino, a thriller performed by actresses Keira Knightley, Mena Suvari and Jacqueline Bisset. Opening will be on the coming year.

Gregson-Williams, in fact, is already working for Scott's brother, Ridley, preparing the score for Kingdom of Heaven. He is credited as well for scoring Bille August's Return to Sender, Dan Ireland's Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, together with Madagascar and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Mark Mancina merges in Asylum

Mark Mancina doesn?t seem to be very busy in creative affairs these days. He's ready to launch Tarzan 2 as a producer, and his only recent involvement in writing music, according to http://www.imdb.com/, will be the soundtrack for Asylum. Mancina will merge in this project together with Craig Armstrong, firstly credited as the single composer of this particular score.

Asylum is a thriller directed by David McKenzie, based in a novel written by Patrick McGrath. British actress Natasha Richardson will play the role of a psychiatrist's wife who feels attracted by one of his patients, kept in a high security asylum for having brutally killed his wife. Ian "Gandalf" McKellen will also start in Asylum, to open next year.

Mychael Danna is restless

Eve and the Fire Horse will be a new project for film composer Mychael Danna for the coming years. The film has been written and directed by Julia Kwan, and tells the story of an imaginative 9 years old, coming from a family of Chinese immigrants who live in Vancouver (British Columbia). Fantasy and fun are the topics for this movie, which also presents a certain religious background.

Mr. Danna, in fact, won?t have time for many holidays when looking at his present agenda. He has recently released Vanity Fair, and very soon Being Julia will follow on CD. But the composer is also scoring Water, Aurora Boealis, Black and Where the Truth Lies.

Michael Giacchino endures on superheroes music

Michael Giacchino's shift to film music seems now more than a flare. According to Music from the Movies, the composer will score another superhero project from the Disney factory. After writing a score for The Incredibles, Giacchino is now involved in Sky High, a family adventure about a teenager attending a superhero academy.

Sky High will be directed by Mike Mitchell, with young actor Michael Arangano playing the main character, also featuring Kurt Russell and Bruce Campbell, among others.

The composer will be scoring as well The Muppet's Wizard of Oz for TV.

The Matrix Online, Music by Don Davis

Warner Interactive and SEGA recently announced the confirmation of the most of the details that until now it been only speculations about one of the most awaited videogames, "The Matrix Online". Conceive like a sequel of the trilogy, each player will be one person inside MATRIX and will help to liberate humans minds, confronts with agents and people in the system that escape from the MATRIX control, and don't want the freedom in the real world. The game will be online on internet in a one single game worldwide, with the greatest 3D map in the videogames history. Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus), Monica Bellucci (Persephone), Mary Alice (The Oracle), Lambert Wilson (The Merovingian) and many actors from the trilogy (Keanu Reeves and Carrie Ann Moss no, because of evident reasons about the end of the trilogy) have confirmed, that they have provided voice-overs and their character likenesses to the game.

Concerning the score of this project, directed by the same directors and writers of the trilogy, the Wachowsky Brothers, it been hired to the trilogy composer, Don Davis, who will compose a new score. This is the unique project for Davis' diary, except the music for a television documentary called "Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets", announced us time ago. In the words of Davis himself, he will uses all the musical resources that he can to use, to compose the best music for this videogame, like if he has been working on a film. It will be a commercial release of this work in the firsts 2.005.

The Phantom of the Opera

More than a half and a month for world release of the awaited cinematographic version from Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, now it's available the information about the motion picture soundtrack edition, and we can hear the firsts extracts of the music at the official movie website, to hear the difference between the musical and cinema, at: phantomthemovie.warnerbros.com.

Like in the Original Cast Recording of the musical, there will be two editions from the original soundtrack of this film. One with 1CD with highlights of the film, and another with 2CDs with all the music in the film, songs and score. Both of them contains the new songs composed by Lloyd Webber for the film, entitled: "Learn to be Lonely" that will be sing by Carlotta, performed by Minnie Driver. The 2CDs editions contains dialogue clips from the movie too.

This is the tracklist for the 1CD edition (regular edition):
1. Overture, 2. Think of Me, 3. Angel of Music, 4. The Mirror (Angel of Music), 5. The Phantom of the Opera, 6. The Music of the Night, 7. Prima Donna, 8. All I Ask of You, 9. All I Ask of You (Reprise), 10. Masquerade, 11. Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again, 12. The Point of No Return, 13. Down Once More/Track Down This Murderer, 14. Learn to be Lonely.

This the tracklist for the 2CDs edition (special edition):
Disc 1
1. Prologue, 2. Overture/Hannibal, 3.Think of Me, 4. Angel of Music, 5. Little Lotte/The Mirror (Angel of Music), 6. The Phantom of the Opera, 7. The Music of the Night, 8. Magical Lasso, 9. I Remember/Stranger Than You Dreamt It, 10. Notes/Prima Donna, 11. Poor Fool, He Makes Me Laugh, 12. Why Have You Brought Me Here/Raoul I've Been There, 13. All I Ask of You, 14. All I Ask of You (Reprise)
Disc 2
1. Masquerade/Why So Silent, 2. Madame Giry's Tale/The Fairground, 3. Journey to the Cemetery, 4. Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again, 5. Wandering Child, 6. The Swordfight, 7. We Have All Been Blind, 8. Don Juan, 9. The Point Of No Return/Chandelier Crash, 10. Down Once More/Track Down This Murderer, 11. Learn to be Lonely

After a first contact with new versions, we can see the voices have less presence than the musical cast. It seems like the filmmakers look for a true filming musical with more realistic performances, not like in the West End musical that look for to be an opera but with the spirit of Broadway. The original soundtrack two editions will release worldwide 23th of november, and the film a month later, 22th of December. We'll wait with impatience.

John Ottman, the "Fantastic Fifth"

Other composer with a lot of work to do is the young John Ottman. In his projects he has: "Superman" project and responsability to make music for the new movie directed by his friend Bryan Singer, the remakes of ""House of Wax", will be direct by the novel director Jaume Serra and "Logan's Run", in its involved again Bryan Singer, but only like writer, not director, the first directing project by Shane Black, "Lethal Weapon" saga writer in the movie "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and the thiller "Hide and Seek" will direct by John Polson, ("Swimfan"). Now, he's got one more project, one of the most sweetest movie projects for the next year: "The Fantastic Four".

This Marvel comic adaptation, directed by Tim Story (director from the american adaptation of "Taxi" and the movie "Barbershop"), will starring by Ioan Gruffudd ("King Arthur") like Mr. Fantastic, Michael Chiklis like The Thing, Jessica Alba ("Dark Angel") like The Invisible Girl, Chris Evans ("Cellular") like The Human Torch and Julian McMahon ("Charmed") like one the most famous villains from Marvel, Doctor Doom. By the words of the film producer Ralph Winter, Ottman election reason it's about his work in "X-Men 2". To the question about the composer of the film, Winter said: "John Ottman is the composer, who did X-Men 2. He's very excited and we're very excited about him. A great choice for building themes and emotion. John is terrific. There's nothing to talk about yet (for the soundtrack)." Without any doubt, this is a great oportunity for this great editor/composer to show us again his great talent, and now we can say that Ottman has stolen to his partner Danny Elfman the first position in comic adaptation movies composer.

The Risk Pool could be scored by James Newton Howard

It is well known that director Lawrence Kasdan doesn?t bring many new titles to the pipeline. His films can last about 3 or 4 years to be completed. But he has been faithfully loyal to composer James Newton Howard when asking for a new score since 1990.

This is why the most chances for a musician involved in his latest project The Risk Pool go for JNH. Tom Hanks will be heading the acting crew for this new drama to open in 2006. The film is based on a novel by Robert Russo, about a gambler who suddenly faces his son's custody after his wife goes mentally ill.

Varèse will release the score for Shrek 2

Bussiness as usual: first comes the songs album, and some months later the original music score. Varèse Sarabande has announced in his website that next month (December 7) will bring a new Shrek 2 soundtrack for sale, featuring the score originally composed by Harry Gregson-Williams for this particular film.

Film music lovers will then be able to enjoy more music by one of the most credited Hollywood?s composers at the moment, very busy working in projects such as Return to Sender, Madagascar, Kingdom of Heaven,The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont.

http://www.varesesarabande.com

Aaron Zigman scores The Wendell Baker Story

After composing John Q and The Notebook, Aaron Zigman will write the score for a comedy: The Wendell Baker Story, directed by Andrew and Luke Wilson.

The movie tells the Wendell Baker's (Luke Wilson) story, an ex-con who works in a retirement hotel. Three elderly residents help him win back his girlfriend (Eva Mendes) as he lends them a hand in fighting hotel corruption.