Archive for January 2017

When writing production music, one of the interesting things for us as composers is to see the vastly differing creative and emotive ways our music is used on a vast variety of projects.

When writing production music, one of the interesting things for us as composers is to see the vastly differing creative and emotive ways our music is used on a vast variety of projects.

One of the reasons I never tire of writing music for picture is that the images can often be ambiguous and emotionally uncertain for a viewer, who is then guided as to how the producer wants them to feel about the film by the music. This is pretty powerful and I get a real kick out of knowing the effect that the music used has on the viewer / listener.

All the more reason why I was excited and delighted to see an article by Andrew Cocker, senior marketing director of Expedia, talking about how Expedia has decided to run a series of adverts chosen by running 6 x 3min documentaries and seeing which ones invoked the best response from audiences.

One of the adverts that ended up being commissioned was a moving film about a truck driver from the West Midlands in the UK who loves Opera and travels to Madrid to watch a live performance. It features some of the opera works featured in the Audio Network Opera Favourites album, produced and arranged by Jeff and me alongside Julian Gallant some while ago.

Recording this music was itself an emotional process, as (although recorded at Abbey Road) it was recorded live in real time, with singers and orchestra performing together. Putting world class singers and  players in an iconic studio and listening to them perform some of the greatest works in the opera repertoire was an emotional experience for all involved.

Here’s the advert in all its glory:

And here’s the article about the advert campaign:

Coming soon, more news on our latest projects and releases, from Patriotic American to Brass Band, from Cowboy to Native American Indian Chanting (no honestly) and our first feature film!