This presentation will include:
1. The Japanese ethnic 'sound' is often associated with Japanese films, but this presentation will offer a brief history of recent (since 1950) Japanese film scores using Western orchestral forces, harmony, structures, etc., including a brief discussion of Akira Ifukube, the "Dean of Japanese Film Composers."
a. Concert music of Akira Ifukube
b. Ifukube's groundbreaking original 1956 *Godzilla* score
c. subsequent post-*Godzilla* scores (orchestral, chamber and pop music)...Ifukube and others,
including Maseo Satoh (*Son of Godzilla*), Sugiyama (*Godzilla vs. Biollante*).....and the
Hollywood 'slasher film' composer Christopher Young (*Godzilla* 1985)
2. Japanese films (Japanese actors, directors, composers)
a. Kurosawa's *Ran* (1985 - music by Takemitsu)
b. Kurowawa's *Throne of Blood* (1956 - Satoh)
c. *Black Rain* (1988 - Takemitsu)
3. American films (American actors, American directors, Japanese composers)
a. John Huston's 1968 *The Bible* (score by Mayuzumi, student of Ifukube)
b. Sean Connery's *Rising Sun* (1992 - Takemitsu)
4. International 'standard' for film music: i.e. regardless of nationality, soundscape and/or film language, certain "film music" techniques remain constant...love themes, music for disaster, tension, hope, despair, etc.
5. Mention (and brief excerpts) of other films illustrating various film score elements, including the Japanese influence on non-Japanese film composers/directors including:
a. Spike Lee's 1995 urban blight-tragedy *Clockers* (score by Terence Blanchard)
b. Italian *spaghetti western* composer Ennio Morricone...
c. film music by Jerry Fielding, Jerry Goldsmith, Elliot Goldenthal, others.
d. 1940's "film noir" and contemporary suspense - understated film scores.
Michael Schelle
(composer, b.1950, Philadelphia) - symphonic works
commissioned/performed by numerous major orchestra including Minnesota,
Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, Buffalo, Milwaukee, Honolulu, Cincinnati,
Louisville; conductors of his works have included Neville Marriner, Jesus
Lopez-Cobos, William McGlaughlin, Michael Gielen, Maxiamo Valdes, Tsung Yeh
and Keith Lockhart. Chamber works for XTET (Los Angeles), "Voices of
Change" (Dallas), New York and Pittsburgh new music ensembles. Recent
international performances of his works have included Kammerorchester
Basel, Czestochowa Symphonie (Poland), Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional and the
Koenig Ensemble of London.
Schelle has received composition grants/awards from the National Endowment for
the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, Welsh Arts Council (Cardiff), Arts
Midwest, BMI and ASCAP; First Prize: 1987 Inter-American Competition for
New Orchestral Works, and two Pulitzer Prize nominations. Named
"Distinguished Composer of the Year" by the Music Teachers National
Association (1989); visiting guest Composer in Residence at Wolf Trap, the
Spoleto Festival, Costa Rica, numerous universities. Degrees from Vllanova
University (BA), Hartt School of Music (MM), University of Minnesota (PhD);
principal teachers were Arnold Franchetti, Dominick Argento and Aaron
Copland. Schelle is currently completing a piano concerto and a book
commissioned for Silman-James Press, Los Angeles, entitled "Music for Film:
Interviews and Analyses," to be published summer, 1997.
Michael Schelle is Composer in Residence and Professor of Music at the
School of Music, Butler University, Indianapolis, IN.
Lecture: