Topic: newCDnews
Ed Harris Takes On The Bad Guys, Directing -- And Singing -- With New Film Soundtrack Available Here Historically Westerns have produced some of the most memorable music in cinema history. Composer Jeff Beal's take on the genre is featured on the Lakeshore Records soundtrack for APPALOOSA, available via Amazon Digital. In addition to Beal's score, the album will feature the track, "You'll Never Leave My Heart" sung by the film's director and co-star Ed Harris. Composer Jeff Beal first worked with director Ed Harris on Harris' feature film directorial debut, Pollock. A three-time Emmy Award® winner for the main title of Monk, the original dramatic score of TNT's telefilm Nightmares and Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King, and most recently for The Company, Beal has also been Emmy-nominated five other times, including three nods for the HBO series Rome and one for Carnivale. Beal composed the score for the upcoming film Salomaybe?, directed by Al Pacino. His other film composing credits include the documentary The Pixar Story, Ping Pong Playa, Spirit of the Marathon, and The Passion of Ayn Rand. Steven Schneider (regular contributor to the NY Times) wrote of "...the richness of Beal's musical thinking - the ways in which he conceives of his solos as fully-developed mini compositions, while his compositions often capture the liveliness and unpredictability of the best improvisation."
The golden age of the classical composer may be dead, but there has never been a better time to be a creator of film and TV soundtracks. This seems especially true in Britain, since British composers are currently scoring a huge percentage of Hollywood's most high-profile movies. 
VIVALDI's The Four Seasons present a formidable challenge to the soloist's technical command, tonal variety and imagination; they have been recorded so many times that any violinist who wants to add to the discography must have something distinctive and personal to offer. Sarah Chang has both the brilliant technique and the extroverted personality needed to put her own stamp on the music. Her approach is essentially programmatic. She follows Vivaldi's instructions with obvious relish, using her dazzling virtuosity and all her instrumental resources to create mood and atmosphere and to conjure up vivid pictures of "seasonal" events. Tempi range from beautifully calm slow movements to fast passages at headlong speeds. Contrasting dynamics and articulation, ponticello, trills that give off sparks; colorful nuances, from unvibrated and glassy, to throbbing and passionate, serve to underline Vivaldi's imagery. The result is a dramatic, technically fearless, emotionally uninhibited performance, which, though far from baroque, is honestly felt and convincing in its own way. As an encore, Sarah Chang plays the familiar "G-minor Concerto" with charm and vivacity, and an almost romantically luxurious tone. Totally incongruous with the natural spontaneity of her playing, the booklet shows her in nine terribly affected poses, glamorously attired, amid autumn leaves and snowflakes. --Edith Eisler [amazon.com] 
Paul Potts (born 13 October 1970 in Bristol, England), from Port Talbot in South Wales, is a British singer who became the winner of the first series of ITV's Britain's Got Talent, singing operatic arias and impressing the judges in all of his performances. Potts had previously worked in unpaid opera productions from 1999 to 2003. However, a series of illnesses combined with a bicycle accident in 2003 brought an end to his amateur opera career. At the time of his 2007 victory on Britain's Got Talent, he had been working in The Carphone Warehouse, but following his win, he has been signed by the show's judge Simon Cowell to record an album. 