Once again, fall has proven to be a very busy time here at DRR&P. Since the first week of October I have produced 2 shows for Disney Theatrical, a junior version of Peter Pan and a definitive recording of Tarzan (great music by Phil Collins), SeaWorld Orlando’s new Christmas spectacular, “O Wondrous Night”, recorded and mixed an album for vocal trio, The Marshalls, and tracked an album for up and coming Ecudoran singer, James Febris. All tracking was done at The Tracking Room, Nashville and at my studio, My Space Recording.
We’ve had a virtual “who’s who” of modern Broadway production working with us on several of these projects. Peter Pan Jr was arranged and orchestrated by young composer Eric Svejcar. For our Tarzan production, we chose to have a good size live string section and use all live brass and authentic African percussion as well. My co-producer Jim Abbott, who has worked on every version of Tarzan since the animated film, did the re-orchestration for the recording (Jim is also well known for his work on Wicked and many other shows.) Singers were cast and contracted by Lori Casteel and both the musicians and cast did an amazing job on this really fun project.
The SeaWorld show, massive in scope, was produced in-house by Michael Fletcher, SeaWorld’s VP of entertainment. Director B.T. McNicholl (Cabaret), Vocal Arranger AnnMarie Milazzo (Spring Awakening) and Music Director Ben Cohn (Wicked) all came to Nashville during audio production. Also in form NYC was drummer Sean McDaniel (Book of Mormon.) The show features around 40 classic Christmas songs in “Glee-ful” pop arrangements and opened on 11/25 to rave reviews.
The Marshalls are a gospel vocal trio form Iowa. Produced and arranged by Chris McDonald, their album featured some wonderful film and theater classics from the 40’s and 50’s.
Miami based producer Rodolfo Castillo brought 19 year-old singer James Febris (son of Venezuelan soap-opera star Jaime Araque) all the way from Ecuador to track his album. James admits that country music is where his heart is and while all of his friends back in Ecuador are listening to Reggaeton, he wears out his Taylor Swift cd’s. With Chris McDonald contracting and charting the arrangements, we brought in an all-star rhythm section featuring Shannon Forrest on drums, Tim Marks on bass, Tom Bukovac and Ilya Toshinsky on guitars and Tony Harrell playing keys. A good time was had by all.
I have been or will be the mix engineer for all the projects as well.
Here are some pics from the sessions
