Thursday 23 May 2013

Wizards vs Aliens Update

So.  I've just had the feedback for episodes seven and eight back.  Luckily they went down a storm.  But that's not what I've enticed you hear to tell you.  You don't care about that really, do you?!  You want proper news.  Well, here it is...

I am delighted to say that I will be recording the score for this year's series with the fabulous BBC National Orchestra of Wales again.  And in just a few weeks (cripes!).

It was so much fun last year and they really played their hearts out for me (not literally, of course, that would just have been messy).  It also made a huge difference to the show.  It's great being able to say we're the only children's drama on the BBC that is scored with an actual (78 piece, may I add?!) orchestra.  And on a selfish note it's just great to hear that many musicians playing your music (and it makes me sound like a much better composer when there are that many people putting emotion and effort into my music).

It's going to work slightly differently to last year as (in theory, if I stop typing this blog and get on with some work) I'll have 10 of the 14 episode written by the time we record so there will be more specific cues recorded this year rather trying to preempt how the episodes were going to be paced and feel.  It's much better that way.

The other big change is that I'm not going to conduct it myself this time round.  Although it was a lot of fun, it was hugely stressful trying to conduct an orchestra I'd never worked with whilst running sessions in which there was a lot of music to fit in, in a recording venue I'd never worked with and trusting everyone in the control room to ensure we had the takes we needed (and they did a very good job of it, I have to say).

So that I can be more in control over yay-ing or nay-ing of takes (I'm a control freak) I'm bringing in the wonderful Jeremy Holland-Smith to conduct.  He's worked with BBCNOW on a number of occasions so they should feel comfortable under him and my hope is that it will help bring the music to life even more.

Hopefully we'll be able to document it more this time round and I may even post some pictures on twitter on the day, so keep your eyes peeled.

Now I need to get back to writing so, you know, bye and all that.