Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

Yo-Yo Ma at the Movies Celebrating 60 Years

It’s very hard to believe, but the eternally youthful Yo-Yo Ma will be 60 on October 7. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we honor one of the most famous classical musicians in the world with music from three of his film projects.

Ma played cello solos in two scores by John Williams – those for “Seven Years in Tibet” (1997) and “Memoirs of a Geisha” (2005). Of course, Williams being Williams, both scores were nominated for Academy Awards.

Ma actually hit pay dirt with “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000). Tan Dun’s music contributed to what could be termed “The Year of the Dragon,” as Ang Lee’s film accumulated 10 Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture. In the end, “Crouching Tiger” was honored with awards for Best Foreign Language Film, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, and of course Best Original Score.

In 2004, Ma recorded a very popular album of arrangements for cello and orchestra from the film scores of Ennio Morricone, with the composer conducting. We’ll round out the hour with some of Morricone’s beloved music from “The Mission” (1986).

I hope you’ll join me, as we salute Yo-Yo Ma at the movies, tomorrow evening at 6 ET, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

October 1, 2015
Silk Road Soundtrack Adventure

Put on a comfortable pair of walking shoes. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we travel the Silk Road.

We’ll have music from “The Adventures of Marco Polo” (1938), with Gary Cooper of all people as the medieval mechant-explorer. The score was the first by Hugo Friedhofer (born in San Francisco, despite his über-German name). Freidhofer had labored as an orchestrator for bigger-named composers, such as Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner. He would go on to win an Academy Award for his music for “The Best Years of Our Lives.”

Then we’ll hear selections from two big screen tellings of the exploits of Genghis Khan. “Genghis Khan” (1965) had quite a multi-national cast, in the best Old Hollywood tradition: Omar Sharif, Stephen Boyd, James Mason, Robert Morley, Francoise Morleac, Telly Savalas, Eli Wallach, Woody Strode, and hordes of extras. The music was by Yugoslavian composer Dusan Radic.

“Mongol” (2007) was a joint production of Russia, Germany and Kazakhstan, which was actually shot in China. The music was by Finnish composer Tuomas Kantelinen, in the film supplemented with contributions by the Mongolian rock band Altan Urag. (We’ll stick with the orchestral stuff.)

The score is striking for its use of khöömii throat-singers, female soloists lamenting and ululating over the orchestra, as well as the unique art of “urtiin duu” – traditional Mongolian long-singing. “Mongol” received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

Finally, we’ll have selections from “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000), with music by Tan Dun. The film was the winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Score. It was also nominated for Best Picture.

Yo-Yo Ma performs the cello solos on the soundtrack. One of the tracks is titled “Silk Road.” A couple of years earlier Ma had founded his Silk Road Ensemble.

I hope you’ll join me for 7000 miles in sensible shoes this week, as we travel the Silk Road, on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6 ET, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6, or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

February 26, 2015

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS