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The Film Music Society (formerly the Society for the Preservation of Film Music) is an international non-profit organization supporting the preservation of music from motion pictures and television programs. [1]
Patterned after the National Geographic Society, and the Institute of the American Musical (Miles Kreuger, Founder and President) in Hollywood, The Film Music Society has sought broad public support for a mission of national scope: to preserve for posterity the mostly unpublished materials created in the composition, orchestration, and recording of American motion picture music or film music — Sheet Music (composers' manuscripts, orchestrations, orchestra parts), recordings (disc, tape, soundtracks), and documents (cue sheets, contracts, correspondence).
The Society was founded in 1972. [1]
With the advent of sound films circa 1928 the safekeeping of specially composed film score materials was under the sole purview of the movie studios who owned them and the composers who were employed to write the music. Mostly these materials were stored and continue to be stored in studio music department libraries and in film vaults only accessible to studio personnel. In the heyday of the Hollywood studio system (c. 1920s-1950s), film composers often retained their manuscripts and recordings of their music given to them by the studios as a courtesy. When scoring independent films composers often retained all the score materials themselves, but not the actual music track or soundtrack, which was kept by the production company.
In 1937, producer and film industry visionary David O. Selznick proposed that copies of selected scores should be deposited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, though the plan did not materialize. Ten years later, British musicologist Frederick W. Sternfeld organized the College Committee on Film Music, composed of musicologists, teachers, and librarians, whose goal was to make films, scripts, and copies of film music materials available for study to scholars and students. Some of the material Sternfeld collected for this purpose is preserved in the Rauner Special Collections Library of Dartmouth College and in the Bodleian Library of Oxford University.
Unfortunately the College Committee had been disbanded by the late 1950s, at a time when the studio music departments began to discard portions of their older holdings, believing them to be of no further practical use or commercial value. Probably the greatest single loss occurred in the late 1960s when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in Culver City, CA, discarded all of its orchestra parts and full scores (orchestrations), material that was both priceless and irreplaceable. At the same time music tracks recorded on nitrate film or magnetic film had begun to deteriorate.
Responding to what was dubbed the "M-G-M Holocaust" by film historians, the veteran film and TV composer Fred Steiner formed a small watchdog group in the 1970s that included himself, his film composer colleague David Raksin, and music librarian Jon Newsom of the Library of Congress Music Division. They would periodically visit the studio music departments and encourage departmental personnel not to discard any material before a new home could be found for it, such as colleges or universities, institutions where collections of other film-related material had already been established. In time Steiner believed that there should be a national organization to promote greater public awareness of this precious and unique cultural legacy and to preserve its heritage.
The tragic historical lesson of the ancient Library of Alexandria in Egypt being burned was that as long as only one copy of a book exists, it is not safe from destruction. Were it not for the copies laboriously made by the scribes in the Alexandria Library that were then placed in other libraries of antiquity, all would have been lost forever. Knowing of that historical precedent, as a corollary to the continuing vigilance of Steiner's watchdog group, the formation of the Society as a national non-profit membership organization was initiated by Rosar in 1983, and underwritten by soundtrack collector, Henry P. Adams. Its mandate was to seek out film music collections, whether at the studios or in the hands of composers, donate them to academic libraries, and make preservation copies of them to be placed in other repositories. Since its founding the Society has published a quarterly newsletter, The Cue Sheet, which reports its activities, and includes articles and interviews on film music topics.
Rather like an invisible college, the Founding Board of Directors included a diverse group of individuals, who all shared knowledge and a common love for film music: A composer (Fred Steiner), a film journalist (Tony Thomas), a librarian (Linda Mehr of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library), a motion picture music editor (George Korngold, also a record producer and son of film composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold), film historians (Rudy Behlmer, Clifford McCarty, and William H. Rosar), a performing arts programmer (Jay Alan Quantrill), and an attorney (Leslie Zador, son of film composer Eugene Zador). William H. Rosar served as its first President (1984–89) and subsequently as its first Executive Director (1989–90). Incorporated as a California non-profit public corporation in 1984, the organization changed its name to The Film Music Society in 1997. The current president is composer David Newman, son of the celebrated film composer, Alfred Newman.
In 1990, William H. Rosar went on to found the International Film Music Society, a learned society of scholars studying film from the standpoint of musicology, and which in 2011 established the Institute for Film Music Studies for that purpose. He is editor of the first learned journal in the field, The Journal of Film Music, which is the official organ of the Institute.
Maximilian Raoul Steiner was an Austrian composer and conductor who emigrated to America and became one of Hollywood's greatest musical composers.
A soundtrack is recorded sound accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film, video, or television presentation; or the physical area of a film that contains the synchronised recorded sound.
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to enhance the dramatic narrative and the emotional impact of the scene in question. Scores are written by one or more composers under the guidance of or in collaboration with the film's director or producer and are then most often performed by an ensemble of musicians – usually including an orchestra or band, instrumental soloists, and choir or vocalists – known as playback singers – and recorded by a sound engineer. The term is less frequently applied to music written for media such as live theatre, television and radio programs, and video games, and said music is typically referred to as either the soundtrack or incidental music.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold was a Moravian-born American composer and conductor. A child prodigy, he became one of the most important and influential composers in Hollywood history. He was a noted pianist and composer of classical music, along with music for Hollywood films, and the first composer of international stature to write Hollywood scores.
A horror film score is music used and often specially written for films in the horror genre.
John Francis Mauceri is an American conductor, producer, educator and writer. Since making his professional conducting debut almost half a century ago, he has appeared with most of the world's great orchestras, guest-conducted at the premiere opera houses, produced and musically supervised Tony and Olivier Award-winning Broadway musicals, and served as university faculty and administrator. Through his varied career, he has taken the lead in the preservation and performance of many genres of music and supervised and conducted important premieres by composers as diverse as Debussy, Stockhausen, Korngold, Hindemith, Bernstein, Sibelius, Ives, Elfman and Shore. He is also a leading performer of music banned by the Third Reich and especially music of Hollywood's émigré composers.
Hugo Wilhelm Friedhofer was an American composer and cellist best known for his motion picture scores.
Frederick Steiner was an American composer, conductor, orchestrator, film historian and arranger for television, radio and film. Steiner wrote the theme music for The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show and Perry Mason. While Alexander Courage composed the theme music for the original Star Trek TV series (TOS), Steiner's significant contributions to the franchise included composing more of the incidental music for TOS than any other composer, as well as scoring or conducting the music for 29 of the show's 79 episodes. Steiner also composed and orchestrated additional music for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), was part of the team of composers for the 1985 film, The Color Purple, which received an Oscar nomination, and was an uncredited composer for Return of the Jedi.
Music librarianship is the area of librarianship that pertains to music collections and their development, cataloging, preservation and maintenance, as well as reference issues connected with musical works and music literature. Music librarians often have degrees in both music and librarianship. Music librarians deal with standard librarianship duties such as cataloging and reference, which become more complicated when music scores and recordings are involved. Therefore, music librarians generally read music and have at least a basic understanding of both music theory and music history to aid in their duties.
Eugene Zador was a Hungarian and American composer.
The University of North Texas Libraries is an American academic research library system that serves the constituent colleges and schools of University of North Texas in Denton. The phrase "University of North Texas Libraries" encompasses three aspects: The library collections as a whole and its organizational structure; The physical facilities and digital platform that house the collections; and certain self-contained collections of substantial size that warrant the name "Library"—the Music Library and the Digital Libraries (collections), for example, are housed in Willis Library.
Up (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the film score to the 2009 Disney-Pixar film of the same name composed by Michael Giacchino. This is his third feature film for Pixar after The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Giacchino wrote a character theme-based score that the filmmakers felt enhanced the story of the film. Up received positive reviews from music critics and won major awards. Despite being well regarded, Up was not released as a compact disc (CD) until 2011, when it became available via Intrada Records.
Prometheus: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is an original motion picture soundtrack album for the 2012 science fiction film, Prometheus. Written by German composer Marc Streitenfeld, the soundtrack also features two supplemental pieces by English composer Harry Gregson-Williams, and it was conducted by Ben Foster.
The Margaret Herrick Library, located in Beverly Hills, California, is the main repository of print, graphic and research materials of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). The library contains a digital repository and has historical materials that include those relating to the Oscars awards show.
Skyscraper – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the film score to the 2018 film of the same name, written and composed by Steve Jablonsky. The score was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London with an orchestra conducted by Alastair King. Additional mixing was done at Arata Music Studios. The soundtrack was digitally released on July 13, 2018 by Milan Records with the physical soundtrack being released later on August 3, 2018.
Edward Benson Powell was an American arranger, orchestrator and composer, who served as Alfred Newman's musical lieutenant at 20th Century Fox film studios for over three decades. His contributions to the scores of 400 films culminated in the canon of widescreen Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals of the late 1950s, for which his arrangements, such as the extended "Carousel Waltz", continue to be revived in concerts and proms, as well as live-to-classic pictures. Powell was occasionally credited as Ed or without the middle initial, but his friends invariably called him Eddie.
Treasure Planet (An Original Walt Disney Records Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the 2002 animated science fiction action-adventure film Treasure Planet. The album features seventeen tracks – fifteen tracks from the score composed by James Newton Howard, and also featured two pop singles: "I'm Still Here" and "Always Know Where You Are". Walt Disney Records released the film's soundtrack album on November 19, 2002. The film's score received positive critical reception, with praise directed on Howard's composition.
Alice in Wonderland (An Original Walt Disney Records Soundtrack) is the score album to the 2010 film Alice in Wonderland directed by Tim Burton and produced by Walt Disney Pictures, which is a live-action adaptation of Disney's 1951 film and re-imagining of Lewis Carroll's works. The film's original score is composed by Danny Elfman, a regular collaborator of Burton.
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted is the soundtrack album to the 2012 film Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, the third instalment in the Madagascar franchise. The album was released on June 5, 2012 by Interscope Records, and featured original songs and score, produced by Hans Zimmer, who worked on the franchise's previous instalments. The album featured popular dance singles, accompanying few original songs written specially for the film.
Die Hard: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack for John McTiernan's 1988 action film Die Hard starring Bruce Willis, that features an original score composed by Michael Kamen and incorporates diegetic music pieces. It has been critically acclaimed and assessed as one of Kamen's best works in film music and won him a BMI TV/Film Music Award for his work on the score.