Apple’s boutique artist growth studio Platoon lately launched a brand new animated movie for composer Mason Bates’ Philharmonia Fantastique: The Making of the Orchestra, a 25-minute concerto for orchestra and animated movie, directed by seven-time Academy Award-winning sound designer Gary Rydstrom (Titanic) and that includes the work of Jim Capobianco (Ratatouille, Mary Poppins Returns).
Now, the movie described by legendary movie composer John Williams as “the largest step ahead since Fantasia” shall be accessible to lease or buy in 4K and encompass sound on the Apple TV app and to stream on Apple Music. The movie, celebrating Bates’ distinctive and magical type intersecting music and know-how, incorporates a soundtrack carried out by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed by Edwin Outwater.
Philharmonia Fantastique portrays the 4 households of the orchestra, every with their very own distinctive sound worlds and musical motifs: ‘the slinky, refined noir-jazz of the woodwinds; the plush romanticism of the strings; the aggressive techno-fanfares of the brass; and the percussion part “drum circle” in all its versatility.’ By exhibiting how these numerous devices work collectively to create a extra highly effective musical expertise, the piece celebrates a message of unity.
Audiences are guided by the live-action orchestra (and even contained in the devices) by a magical, historically animated Sprite character. Multi-Oscar and BAFTA winner Rydstrom, of Lucasfilm and Skywalker Sound, labored along with Oscar-nominated animation author/director Capobianco to create the hybrid movie over almost a yr. The Sprite interacts with the conductor and on-stage musicians as an example the intricacies of how devices work individually and collectively to provide an enormous vary of sound. To look inside devices, the workforce used high-definition particular results cameras, together with probe lenses, to see inside a violin, flute and up near brass valves.
The movie additionally options sound design constructed from the important thing clicks of woodwinds, faucets on the physique of string devices and classic analog synthesizers. “Music itself has all the time been a wedding of know-how and artwork,” says Rydstrom. “In Philharmonia Fantastique, we use each new and outdated applied sciences to discover how music comes collectively, how radically totally different sounds and methods converge into the complete sound of an orchestra.”
The music of Philharmonia Fantastique ventures past the bounds of classical to usher in components of jazz and techno, and was co-commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Nationwide Symphony Orchestra and American Youth Symphony. The soundtrack was launched on Sony Classical in April 2022, recorded by the CSO performed by Outwater at Orchestra Corridor, Symphony Middle in Chicago in 2021.
Following late-2022 premieres with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Nationwide Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and San Diego Symphony, Philharmonia Fantastique started a North American tour with dwell performances with the Oklahoma Metropolis Philharmonic, The Louisville Orchestra (Nov. 12) and, on Saturday (Jan. 21), Nashville Symphony.
The present’s upcoming run consists of the Kansas Metropolis Symphony (Jan. 29), New West Symphony (March 4-5), The Cleveland Orchestra (April 2), Utah Symphony (April 11) and Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (Apr. 30). The European premiere will happen at London’s Southbank Centre on April 16 with the Aurora Orchestra, and the work will then tour internationally.
“Creating a brand new ‘information to the orchestra’ was an extremely inspiring and difficult undertaking,” says Bates. “How can we showcase the magical wonders of the orchestra in a recent approach? For me, the way in which was the idea of ‘how they work’: how brass valves slice air, how strings resonate when creating harmonics, how woodwinds make music with clicking keys. When an orchestra performs, the mixing of a lot engineering into one large instrument is an actual mannequin of ‘unity from variety.’ All these totally different supplies and applied sciences — and other people — syncing collectively to make stunning music is an actual mannequin for a way we should always all behave as folks.”
Discover extra info, tour dates and hyperlinks to look at Philharmonia Fantastique at spritesworld.org.
