Anyone going to Comic Con this year?  

I’ll be among the 100,000 that take the pilgrimage to the Geek Mecca that is San Diego this July.  On Thursday July 24, I’ll be appearing on the Battlestar Galactica 30th Anniversary Panel (11:15 - 12:15, Room 6B), hosted by original Apollo / Tom Zarek himself, Richard Hatch!  The panel will also include Tom DeSanto and science advisor Kevin Grazier.  If you haven’t been to any of our recent Comic Con panels, you should definitely check it out.  Richard has some great footage to show, and we may screen some selections from my recent Music of Battlestar Galactica documentary.

And stick around until Sunday night, July 27th.  I will perform at an exclusive double-bill concert, featuring the Singers of Battlestar Galactica.  I’m playing with Raya Yarbrough and Brendan McCreary, in two sets of their own original material.  These artists frequently sing on my scores, but you can’t truly appreciate their talent until you’ve heard them perform their original songs (although, I wouldn’t be surprised if a few Galactica songs popped up in there as well… perhaps a Dylan cover?).  Other Galactica musicians, such as violin maestro Paul Cartwright and guitarist Steve Bartek will also share the stage.  And we’ll have some surprise Galactica guests as well!

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Battlestar Galactica, Concerts / Performances | 18 Comments »

SPOILERS ABOUND:  My journey scoring Battlestar Galactica has been long and arduous, but intensely rewarding.  I’m only now realizing how deeply it has affected me, on both musical and personal levels.  Many experiences stand out as having an incredible impact on me: scoring the destruction of the Olympic Carrier as my first cue on my first professional credit, composing endless drafts of “Passacaglia,” scoring Kara’s literal and figurative self-destruction in Maelstrom.

When I first watched the rough cut of Revelations months ago, I suspected that scoring it would be another such experience.  But I had no idea what I was in store for.

Throughout my life, I’ve written only four pieces that redefined what I’m capable of, compositions that stand above everything else I’ve ever done: works that changes the way I approach my craft.  While these transformations are often painful, they are the growth that all artists strive for.

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Battlestar Galactica | 94 Comments »

Great news!  Warner Bros. and La La Land Records have come together to release my soundtrack album for “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Season One.”  This will include all the best musical moments from the first season, featuring all the metal-smashing-percussion and electric-string-quartet you can handle!  The album release date has not yet been announced, but expect it before the end of the year.

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Albums, Eureka, Films, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles | 13 Comments »

MORE SPOILERS: The Hub is an exciting episode because it resolves several story lines, and begins new ones as well.   The episode focuses on the battle to destroy the Cylon Resurrection Hub, but also on Laura Roslin, who is among the most complex and interesting characters on the show.  As a result, I was able to write an usually expressive and dynamic score.

The music introduced several new ideas to propel the story forward.  Most importantly, I wrote a new theme to represent the Resurrection Hub:

The Hub Theme plays throughout the entire battle sequence, an usual choice since it is inherently not energetic action music.  Replacing the expected raging percussion and searing ethnic soloists that typically accompany space battles, this piece is instead introspective and spiritual, because I wanted the music to underscore the incredible importance of the event.  The destruction of the Resurrection Hub completely redefines Cylon existence, and levels the playing field in their war.  The score is underlining these essential truths, while allowing the bullets and spaceships to speak for themselves.

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Battlestar Galactica | 51 Comments »

SPOILERS BEYOND: Sine Qua Non features the return of two of my favorite characters from Season 3… Romo Lampkin and Jake, the canine hero of the New Caprica resistance!  The episode covers a lot of ground, but essentially is about two plotlines: Lee and Romo’s search for a new president, and Adama’s gradual realization that he can not leave Laura Roslin behind.  As a result, the vast majority of the score is built from two musical themes, one for each storyline.

Although Romo was first introduced in the final episodes of Season Three, his character was not given a musical theme… much to the dismay of actor Mark Sheppard.  I later bumped into Mark on several social occasions, and he consistently asked when I was going to write a “Romo Lampkin” theme, and I consistently promised him he’d get one before the series ended.  When I saw the rough cut of Sine Qua Non, I knew it was my chance to make good on my promise.  So, Mark… this theme’s for you, man!  :)

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Battlestar Galactica | 29 Comments »

For those of you who missed the concert we did at The Roxy last month, G4.com is running complete music videos of two songs, Roslin and Adama and Fight Night.  Below are the smaller versions, but follow the links to see the bigger videos. 

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Battlestar Galactica, Concerts / Performances | 21 Comments »

BEWARE THE SINGING SPOILERS: Throughout Guess What’s Coming To Dinner, Gaeta sings to distract himself from the pain after his leg is amputated.  The song, Gaeta’s Lament, serves as a narrative thread connecting the entire episode, not only communicating his character’s misery, but weaving together the multiple story arcs. 

This episode is a special one for me, because it represents the first time I’d been brought onboard at the script level.  The scoring process is generally the last step in the journey of completing an episode.  I’m accustomed to writing music for a finished story.  Here, I had the unique opportunity to help shape the musical identity before production even began.  Writer Michael Angeli, director Wayne Rose and actor Alessandro Juliani and I all worked closely together to bring this song to the screen.

Alessandro Juliani (AJ) said that the idea “began around a dinner table when we were shooting Kevin Fahey’s script ‘Faith.’ We were out one night after work, and somehow it came up in conversation that I had studied opera (in what seemed like another lifetime at Mcgill University in Montreal).” 

Writer Michael Angeli described the evolution of the song: “After we hammered out the bare bones story arc, Ron came to me with this idea of having Gaeta sing ‘an opera’ whenever his leg’s bothering him.  And he wanted an original song.  Since it was my episode, later I asked him if this opera was something I should write and he was, like, ‘Yeah, why not?’  I’m pretty sure we had that conversation after we were drinking all night  (we would work for 12 hours a day, then kick it, big time in the evenings).”

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Battlestar Galactica | 74 Comments »

G4.com is running exclusive concert footage of the recent Music of Battlestar Galactica at the Roxy Theatre!  It features interviews with myself, singers Brendan McCreary and Raya Yarbrough, and our MC for the evening, Kandyse “Dualla” McClure.  You’ll also hear clips from our performances of Fight Night and Roslin and Adama.

If this segment gets enough clicks, they’re ready to run FULL MUSIC VIDEOS of those two songs, so pass that url to your buddies! 

Here’s the small version, since it’s the only one that fits in my little blog!

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE EMBIGGENED VERSION!

And check out the absolutely stunning photographs from both concerts, as well as a full band rehearsal, from the lens of Andrew Craig, who does amazing work.  These are some of the best pictures of our band ever taken:

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Battlestar Galactica, Concerts / Performances | 25 Comments »

     BEWARE THE USUAL SPOILERS:  Many of the themes developed in The Road Less Travelled return in Faith.  But this episode is an even bigger melting pot of musical ideas from throughout the series.  And it introduces the first brand-new theme since Cally’s theme in The Ties That Bind.  

     The episode picks up right where we left off last week: a tense scene underscored with a signature percussion groove I called the Mutiny Riff.  While this swinging 3/4 pattern rolls beneath the entire scene, the most interesting musical moment in the teaser happens while Kara and the crew are frantically treating Gaeta.  Here, the ethnic soloists state a new idea which I will call Gaeta’s Theme for now.

      This theme will be featured (very prominently) in next week’s episode, so I will save the juicy details and analysis until then.  But, it makes several appearances in this episode, foreshadowing the unusual role it plays next week.  

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Battlestar Galactica | 17 Comments »

     SPOILERS AHEAD: The Road Less Travelled is an important episode because it simultaneously brings together several significant story points from the past and sets in motion events that will prove pivotal in the future. The episode focuses on Kara and her crew aboard the Demetrius, so the Starbuck Theme…

… and the Starbuck Destiny Theme… 

… are both featured frequently in the score. 

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Battlestar Galactica | 14 Comments »