Hello there, welcome! Escaping the Canon Part II covers conducting Musical Theatre, Film Soundtracks and Video Game Scores. Around five or six hours of interview time went into this issue, so there is a huge amount of useful material inside.
The first interview is with conductor David White, who shared his fascinating experiences conducting Cabaret in Sweden last year. David re-orchestrated the stage version (which varies quite substantially from the 1972 film) for the huge Gothenburg Opera Production, and conducted musicians in the pit as well as a band on stage. The musical poses a number of very interesting obstacles for the conductor, as well as being frighteningly relevant in the current political/sociological climate. David was a real delight to talk to, and I hope you enjoy the interview.
Gavin Greenaway has conducted over a hundred film and television scores over the last twenty-five years, and enjoys particularly close working relationships with composers Hans Zimmer and John Powell. In this interview Gavin focuses on the films Interstellar (Zimmer) and How to Train your Dragon (Powell), and he also talks in-depth about the psychology of conducting in the studio. A must-read for those interested in film music – it was such an interesting conversation and I highly recommend the films as well!
And finally, for something completely different. Jack Wall, an ASCAP award winning and BAFTA nominated composer, spoke with me about conducting his Video Games Live Tour and the soundtrack for Call of Duty: Black Ops II (among others). It is rare for video games scores to be taken seriously in more academic circles, so I was very interested in hearing about Jack’s work conducting them. He is also the first conductor I’ve spoken to about conducting his own music, which opens up a whole new area of study to explore at a later date.
Very many thanks to David, Gavin and Jack for their involvement. They were all such great company! Also thank you (again) to Mark Warman for introducing me to David and Gavin.
Happy Reading!
Dr. Hannah Baxter (Editor)