Scoring Session Reports

A few days ago, video footage from the recording of my Violin Concerto for Anna Karkowska and the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios was made availabe on Youtube. It includes footage from the recording session as well as interviews and short clips from the recording and is available in High Definition. There are interviews included with Anna Karkowska, conductor Benjamin Wallfisch, Violinist expert Benjamin Hebbert, pianist and producer Kasha Karkowska, violinist and conductor Dennis Simons, me and others. You can have a look at the videos below: Part 1: Part 2: Part 3: Part 4: The recording  will be available fall of this...

There’s so much happening at the moment, that I hardly manage to keep my site updated. After I’ve scored the movie “Liebling, lass uns scheiden” during the last few weeks (parallel to going to London, attending rehearsals in Thun etc.) we went to Prague on July 6th, to record the orchestral score for the movie. This time, the music was a bit different from what we’ve done before as it incoporates a jazz quartett on many parts of the score together with a full symphonic orchestra. The sessions were great fun and we really enjoyed the playing of the fantastic Robert Balzar Trio together wit the City of Prague Philharmonic orchestra. 2 days after the session, I went straight to Leipzig to attend the mixing of the score at Genuin. Holger...

3 days ago, I flew over to London to conclude a project that I have been working on for months now. In February I got commissioned by the great New York based violinst Anna Karkowska to write her a violin concerto which was going to be recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra in the famous Abbey Road studios. I, of course, did not hesitate a moment and started working on it right away. It was supposed to be a very filmic sounding concerto with violin and orchestra being equal partners so with this great orchestra and soloist on my fingertips, I knew I could write music that would explore the brillance of Anna and each and every player of the orchestra on different levels. The collaboration with Anna went very smoothly, I showed her ideas throughout the...

Recently, we had the rare opportunity to record a soundtrack for a TV commercial with a full symphonic orchestra. Most of the spot is animated and stylistically a bit in the Tim Burton area so we decided to go for a somewhat Danny Elfmanish approach with odd meters, solo vocalists etc. It was quite fun doing such a thing. Moritz cut together a nice small making-of video which shows the process from the “sound on the stage” to the final spot. Check it out below. The final audio in better quality can be heard here: Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. All the best Robin

There is a small video clip from the scoring sessions of Anno 1404 available on Youtube. I did parts of the orchestration for this score. I posted a few pictures from these sessions a while back already but now you can also have an acoustic impression of the score. You can have a look and listen here:

The last two days I attended another scoring session from Dynamedion, for which I did a few orchestration. The recordings took place in Frankfurt/Oder again with its great orchestra and even greater souding recording stage. Here are a few pictures: The recording stage The contrabasses The orchestra ready to go… The string section The orchestra The Horns and woodwinds The horns The orchestra from above The orchestra from above 2 The orchestra from above 3 The low

Yesterday, I went to Halle/Saale to attend the scoring sessions for the next part of the very popular computer game series Anno1404 for which I orchestrated parts of the orchestral soundtrack. It was a very nice day, the recordings went very smoothly and the “Staatskapelle Halle/Saale” played really great. Here are some pictures from the scoring session: [nggallery id=2]

I’m back! Well, actually I wasn’t gone for too long but on 7/8th of September I was in Prague to record the score for the TV Movie “Eine Bärenstarke Liebe”. Everything went great as usual, we had quite lots of time this time so we were able to do a lot of detail work and many retakes until we thought it was a perfect recording. Just as I came back my next project started: I’m orchestrating parts of the new part of the Anno series… I’m really looking forward to this project. So, no long session report this time but only a few pictures, I need to get back to work…

As I promised, I wrote a “short” report about the “Ausbilder Schmidt” scoring sessions in Prague. “You will probably not make it in the booked 2,5 orchestra sessions.” – “Err, well, can we book another half session?” – “Sorry, that’s not possible, we can’t record 12 hours a day, it would just be too exhausting for the musicians and anybody else and the next day after your choir session is already booked by someone else.” – “Oh, err… well? What do we do?” – “Well, we’ll just try our best and hope to get it done.” – That was the situation we were in a few days before April 19th, our arrival day in Prague. I had sent out the score...

From January 28th-29th the recording sessions for the score of “Black Prophecy” took place in Frankfurt/Oder. I orchestrated about half of the score and attended the scoring sessions on January 28th. Everything went great, the stage sounded beautiful and the orchestra did a really good job on a few quite challenging tracks. The game will be out in stores at the end of 08 so make sure to get it :) Here are some pictures from the scoring: Oh well, sometimes even orchestrators are overworked :) Nice organ, unfortunately not used in the score… well, maybe next time :) The seating of the strings and woodwinds. The recording stage, a former c