April2018

CONCERT VIOLINIST JOSHUA BELL’S RARE ARTISTRY ON MAX AND ME

• Uncategorized • No Comments

Concert violinist Joshua Bell’s artistry moves me like few other classical artists. I’m grateful to the film makers at Dos Corazones who are visionaries and could see the value of hiring this incredible artist and how he enhances the depth of “Max and Me.” To get a recording session date with Joshua was challenging with his busy schedule. We finally found one afternoon 5 months out where he could fly from Germany to London for just a few hours and then get back to his tour. I first met him backstage at the Hollywood bowl in Los Angeles after he played the Bruch Violin Concerto and then brilliantly conducted my favorite Beethoven Symphony, The 7th. He graciously said “Very nice to meet you…when can I get the music? Understandably, he didn’t want to commit till he saw the music. Because the editing and animation of his movie scenes were finished late, the music was composed last minute. I saw him days afterward at Abbey Road Studios. Somehow a wrong note made its way into his part. Joshua liked that note and presented very solid reasons for keeping it. I insisted. After some tussling, he graciously relented and we laughed. Truth is, the way Joshua plays, it doesn’t matter much what note it is; his artistry is filled with such pathos. I asked him how he approached phrasing with such intelligence and he said “I just feel it.” I guess you have to be Joshua Bell to feel with such rare musicality. In #18 I LOVE YOU (short excerpt playing) A fearful young man at Auschwitz wants to end his life by letting guards shoot him. Maximilian Kolbe listens to his anxiety, puts his arm around him and warmly assures him that he loves him and that even amidst the darkness of Auschwitz there is still hope. Thank you Joshua Bell! Sony Masterworks released the soundtrack to “Max and Me” ahead of the movie’s release. While Joshua’s tracks are spectacular, the best way to fully appreciate Joshua Bell and Max and Me is to listen to the entire score from beginning to end. You can do so wherever music is streamed and of course wherever music sold. Photo Joshua Bell with Mark McKenzie holding his rare stradivarius.

View »

REPEATEDLY CALLED SCORE OF THE YEAR!

• Uncategorized • No Comments

“A triumphant ravishing masterwork…finest film music yet for 2018” American Music Preservation

“Staggeringly beautiful…score of the year” Movie Music UK

“Boundless expression of joy…score of the year” Movie-wave.net

“Tender, heartfelt, soaring, gorgeous…score of the year” Score Zone Score Zone

“You’re going to have goosebumps…one of the best scores of the year.” Cinematic Sound

“profound…inspiring and haunting…stunningly beautiful.” Movie Music International

“An ode to symphonic beauty…do not miss this celebration of life and love” Soundtrack Dreams

“I was brought to tears…the more I hear it the more I believe it is a truly theophanic work.” The Click Track

Max and Me is a staggeringly beautiful score, filled to the brim with orchestral glory, soaring melodies, emotional themes, choral wonderment, and sublime instrumental solos…it has firmly anchored itself in place as the leading contender for 2018’s Score of the Year…I genuinely can’t remember the last time I was so moved by a piece of new film music as I was by Max and Me…Anyone who loves film music in the way I love film music, who yearns for thematic grandeur, who craves emotional power, and who celebrates live orchestras and choirs, should seek out this astonishing score immediately, and then thank whatever deity or higher power is appropriate for the fact that Mark McKenzie is still being given the opportunity to write music like this.” Jonathan Broxton Movie Music UK

MAX AND ME is a triumphant, ravishing masterwork – a glorious, infinitely exquisite tribute to the overpowering faith and inherent goodness alive within the human soul…the finest film music yet for 2018. McKenzie’s startlingly beautiful music reaches layers, depths and textures of ethereal redemption and spiritual ascension stunningly realized and performed. Joshua Bell’s superb virtuoso violin, along with the sublime vocal performance by The London Boys Choir, elevates the force and majesty of McKenzie’s remarkable score to unimagined heights of tearful grandeur.”Steve Vertlieb American Music Preservation.”

Tender, heart-felt, soaring…McKenzie’s music here certainly qualifies as amidst ‘the best’ among his peers….Max and Me is score of the year material, gorgeous, soaring, and emotionally moving to the highest degree…What are you waiting for? Buy with confidence. Anthony Aguilar Score Zone

I feel I have been welcomed in a fairy tale world, both because of the atmosphere and of how incredibly, not of this earth beautiful the music of Mark McKenzie is…The essence of unconditional love, the essence of sacrifice dominates this sweeping composition which is not of this earth….Max and Me is an ode to symphonic beauty, to music that transcends boundaries of all kinds…do not miss this celebration of life and love” Soundtrack Dreams.

“outrageously beautiful, uplifting, inspiring music dripping with passion and emotion…Finally, when you think the highest pinnacle has surely been reached, you find out you’re wrong and up comes “Heaven’s Welcome” which is a triumphant, completely boundless expression of joy….I say with total confidence that this is my favorite film score of 2018.” James Southall Movie-wave.net

“MAX AND ME is one of those scores that one listens to and before you know where you are, you have Goosebumps and hairs on the arms and back of the neck standing up.” John Mansell Movie Music International

MAX AND ME

I Am (w/ Joshua Bell on violin) 1:13
Two Crowns Vision 1:22
Head in the Clouds Over You 2:16
You Could be Anything 2:44
In the Trenches 2:29
If You Are So Intelligent Why Don’t You Believe? 5:22
Ask and it Will Be Given to You 1:25
When I’m Saying Me I Mean You :51
Dare To Dream Bigger 1:51
A Mother’s Prayer (w/ Joshua Bell on violin) 3:10
Dapper Duds 1:50
Sunset Hug 1:49
I’m Sorry 3:02
Nazi Brutality 3:17
Prayer For Peace 3:40
Auschwitz Cries 2:56
Only Love is Creative 2:37
I Love You (w/ Joshua Bell on violin) 4:00
Triumph Over Fear 3:20
He Was Always With Me 1:50
I Believe in You 4:12
Heaven’s Welcome 2:28

Violin Soloist: Joshua Bell
Soundtrack Available on Sony Masterworks
Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London
Recording Engineer: Peter Cobbin
Mixed at 21st Century Fox Newman Scoring Stage
Mixing Engineer: Armin Steiner
Conductor: Gordon Johnson
Choir: London Voices
Chorus Masters: Terry Edwards and Ben Parry
Solo Vocalist: Clara Sanabras
Boys Choir: Libera
Libera Choir Director: Robert Prizeman
Orchestra Leader: Thomas Bowes
Piano: Dave Arch
Boy Soloist: Issac London
Wooden Recorders: Helen Keen
Guitar: John Parricelli
Orchestra Contractor: Isobel Griffiths
Assistant Orchestra Contractor: Susie Gillis
Supervising Music & Scoring Editor: Marc S Perlman MPSE
Additional Music Editing: David Lai
Music Preparation: Gregg Nestor
Assistant Recording Engineer: John Barrett
Assistant Mixing Engineer: Christine Russell

In addition to Robert Ruberto and those listed above the composer would like to thank producers Pablo Barroso and Claudia Nemer, Sony Classical’s Mark Cavell, writer Bruce Morris, Animators Paty Garcia-Pena, Gregorio Nunez, legal help Gary Fine and Angela Shirley, the Sony team Lynn Lendway, Stacie Negas, Jennifer Liebeskind, and Beth Miller, Stephen Ritzenthaler, Jerry Goldsmith, David Baker, Nancy Rice Baker, Morten Lauridsen, Michael Cunningham, Ivar Lunde, Sue, Megan and Mollie McKenzie.

View »