2013 started off with three non-stop weeks of show production and recording – five different shows! I’ll try to re-capture some of the fun for you.
I recorded and mixed a score for Disney Land Tokyo’s Diamond Horseshoe Dinner Theatre. A Vaudeville show with a western flavor, composer/arranger Greg Smith wrote for a 10 piece band contracted by accordionist Jeff Taylor (The Time Jumpers, Elvis Costello) that featured a “western swing-horn band” with some killer players like guitarist Bryan Sutton, trombonist Barry Green and fiddler Matt Combs.
After recording the orchestra at The Tracking Room Studio, I mixed the project in the Disney Music Production Studios on the Disney World property in Orlando, Fl. Music Supervisor Steve Skorija and the creative team from Disney Land Tokyo made me feel more than welcome and everyone was very happy with the final product.
Next, I had a unique opportunity to work with another of Broadway’s most accomplished composers, Andrew Lippa (The Wild Party, The Addams Family), on a three song recording for the new musical Big Fish, based on the Tim Burton movie. Big Fish opens in Chicago for previews this April before moving into the Neil Simon theatre on Broadway. The Larry Hochman orchestrations were conducted by Mary-Mitchell Campbell (yet another highly accomplished broadway-ite), and we had a 14 piece orchestra in Oceanway Nashville’s Studio A for the sessions. The songs were beautiful and it was a treat to work with Andrew, Mary-Mitchell and Larry.
Lastly, I just completed six solid (and wonderfully exhausting) days of Orchestra recording for new adaptations of three great Broadway shows, Legally Blonde, Shrek and Bye, Bye Birdie. These new Jr. version shows for MTI and Tams-Whitmark are such an honor to be working on with my colleagues at iTheatrics. In fact, I believe that this is only the second time that the score to Bye, Bye Birdie has ever been recorded by an orchestra so it’s a high honor indeed.
We had a 25 piece orchestra in for the sessions and not only did we get 92 separate songs recorded in the six days, the musicians gave their all and it sounds phenomenal. David Weinstein did a brilliant job with the score adaptation and conducting on the sessions and the contracting by Chris McDonald was flawless. Vocal recording is scheduled for next month and then lots and lots of mixing!
So a total of 115 pieces of music recorded, over 60 musicians hired on 5 separate projects in three weeks. Happy 2013!
