PR: Danny Elfman "Serenada Schizophrana"
cinemediapromo
http://www.serenadaschizophrana.com/mediaplayer
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DANNY ELFMAN'S FIRST CONCERT WORK
SERENADA SCHIZOPHRANA
IN STORES OCTOBER 3rd ON SONY CLASSICAL
Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated composer of music for over 100 films
and tv series - Batman, Spiderman, Good Will Hunting, Edward
Scissorhands, "The Simpsons"
Work premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2005 - music later featured in
IMAX's Deep Sea 3D
Adding another facet to an already brilliant life in music, Danny
Elfman steps out from his career-defining role as a Grammy
Award-winning, Oscar-nominated composer of original music for film
(Batman, Spiderman, Beetle Juice, The Nightmare Before Christmas) and
television ("Pee-Wee's Playhouse," "The Simpsons,"
"Desperate Housewives") with the release of Serenada Schizophrana,
his first orchestral composition written specifically for the concert
hall.
The world premiere of Serenada Schizophrana at Carnegie Hall on
February 23, 2005 drew ecstatic reviews across-the-board from both
classical music and pop culture critics. It subsequently received
worldwide exposure as the featured music in the soundtrack to the IMAX
film Deep Sea 3D which was narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet.
The Sony Classical recording is conducted by John Mauceri, best known
for his sixteen years as conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.
The genesis of Serenada Schizophrana was a commission from the
American Composers Orchestra (ACO), a new honor for Elfman and a
challenge that he welcomed. Without the usual visuals to drive his
orchestral music, he writes, "I began composing several dozen short
improvisational compositions, none of them related. Slowly, some of
them began to develop themselves until I had six separate movements
that, in some abstract, absurd way, felt connected."
Serenada Schizophrana was scored for large orchestra, electronics, two
pianos, and female voices. "With six movements, rolling piano solos
... and the charming hoots and chirps of eight female voices," wrote
Bernard Holland in the New York Times, "Mr. Elfman gave us music
comfortable in its own world and highly professional in its execution
... The composer of this piece has an ear for symphonic colors and how
to balance them."
"In keeping with the piece's title," Mac Randall also noted at
the time in the New York Observer, "the music veered madly from
Ellingtonian whimsy to Bernard Herrmannesque agitation ... The tortured
swing of the third movement conjured up the image of a jazz band on a
storm-tossed raft, with trash-can cymbals acting as the crashing waves.
And the furious horn-stoked climax and surprising last-second
resolution of the closing movement made for a rousing finish."
For Elfman, a self-taught musician who had never heard any of his
orchestral music performed live on stage, it was a "thrilling
experience." Highly influenced by the work of such mid-20th century
film composers Bernard Herrmann, Nino Rota, Dimitri Tiomkin, Max
Steiner and Erich Korngold, among many others, Elfman's music is also
tempered by Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Orff and Bartók, as well as early
Duke Ellington. "I am forever attached to the music of the early
20th century," Elfman writes. To this mix, he adds his recent
discoveries of Harry Partch, Philip Glass and Lou Harrison.
Serenada Schizophrana is a 'gumbo' of all these styles and
influences, as conjured up by the imaginative and often surreal pen of
Danny Elfman. A prolific composer for more than a quarter-century,
Elfman has written music for over a hundred films and tv series. He is
well-known for his collaborations with equally eccentric director Tim
Burton on a partnership that began in 1985 with Pee-Wee's Big
Adventure, and went on to include Beetle Juice (1988), Batman (1989,
whose theme won the Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition), Edward
Scissorhands (1990), Batman Returns (1992), Mars Attacks! (1996),
Sleepy Hollow (1999), Planet Of the Apes (2001), Big Fish (2003),
Charlie and The Chocolate Factory (2005), and Corpse Bride (2005).
For most of this time (until about a decade ago) Elfman was a mainstay
of the beloved Los Angeles-based group Oingo Boingo, which was
originally assembled in the late-'70s by his older brother,
writer-director Richard Elfman, to provide the music for his first
movie Forbidden Zone (1980). The group flourished (over the course of
eight albums) but also became ubiquitous on movie soundtracks through
the '80s: Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982), Bachelor Party (1984),
Weird Science (whose title song became a pop hit, 1985), Something Wild
(1986), to name a few.
Meanwhile, as his working friendship with Burton grew in the '90s
(and Oingo Boingo eventually disbanded), Elfman focused on what turned
into a string of some 50 signature movie soundtracks, among them: Dick
Tracy (1990), Sommersby (1993), Dolores Claiborne, Dead Presidents, and
To Die For (all 1995), Mission Impossible (1996), the Men In Black
franchise (1997, 2002), Good Will Hunting (1997), Chicago (2002), and
Nacho Libre (2006). Upcoming projects include Disney's animated Meet
the Robinsons, Paramount's adaptation of Charlotte's Web.
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