DSO To Make Beautiful Music With “Masters of Film Music”
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra decided to bite off a big chunk of a project with the announcement of Masters of Film Music, a multi-year project. It has commissioned six of today’s top film composers to create world-premiere works that will debut in 2010. The compositions will also include a multi-media career retrospective with images on a larger-than-life screen.
Making up the stable of celluloid composers are
- James Newton Howard (Pretty Woman, The Sixth Sense, King Kong, I am Legend, The Village, Michael Clayton, The Fugitive, The Dark Knight with Hans Zimmer, My Best Friend’s Wedding, etc.)
- George Fenton (Gandhi, with Ravi Shankar, The Fisher King, Dangerous Liaisons, Hitch, The Madness of King George, Memphis Bell, Planet Earth, Blue Planet, etc.)
- Theodore Shapiro (Marley and Me, The Devil Wears Prada, Old School, Tropic Thunder, Blades of Glory, Dodgeball, Starsky & Hutch, You, Me & Dupree, etc.)
- Michael Giacchino (UP, Mission Impossible III, Star Trek, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Lost, etc.)
- Harry Gregson-Williams (Shrek 1, 2, and 3, The Chronicles of Narnia Series, X Men Origins: Wolverine, The Prince of Persia, etc.
- Sir Anthony Hopkins (Slipstream, August, Stella Aria, The Mask of Time and Fanfare, etc.) Yup, you read that last one right!
Three of the composers (Harry, Teddy, and George) joined DSO conductor Jaap van Zweeden (pictured, left, 
with Harry, Teddy, and George) on the stage at the Meyerson for this morning’s announcement to discuss the plans. They looked to all the world as if they’d rather be working on their scores immediately. Evidently last night they’d had dinner in Jaap’s residence at the Ritz to discuss their upcoming assignments withJaap and DSO President Doug Adams.
One of the points of conversation was the Lay Family Organ. It seems she can be a bit intimidating, so Harry believes that that the other composers are going to let him take up the challenge and incorporate the organ in his work. Admitting that his earliest musical recollections were in church, he looked up at the mammoth pipes with admiration — a little like most men look at a Ferrari. But this isn’t his first time with music requiring some muscle and strength. In working on Heaven and Kingdom, he learned powerful music without being overwhelming can be a challenge for composers.
Speaking of the dinner at Jaap’s, George and Harry were commenting on the excellent food. Harry asked if the chef, who prepared the meal and seemed like a regular fellow, was well known. Doug smiled saying, “Yes, Dean has quite a reputation.”
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