Not to get all negative here but am I alone in finding the "Hollywood in Vienna" concept strange considering all the Viennese composers who went to Hollywood were forced out of Vienna? Not to mention that outside this one concert per year that none of these composers, past or present, are heard in Vienna the other 364 days a year?
Here are a couple of pictures from yesterday's symposium which was held at the university for music and performing arts in Vienna:
John Mauceri (talking about the forerunners of film music in classical music citing examples by Beethoven, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Schumann and others)
Aleksey Igudesman (talking about collaborating with Hans Zimmer on the score for Sherlock Holmes)
The violonist was very funny, telling stories about Ennio Morricone praising the work of his group when they performed their adaptions of his music for two violins and cello,
about Guy Ritchie wanting a violinist who sounded like an Ukrainian c**t. So Zimmer thought of him even though he was Russian... He guessed it was a compliment.
about recording the violin solo for Sherlock Holmes' explosion scenes: Zimmer brought something to the session telling him: "This is a really good bottle of wine. Now drink it." The violinist thought: "well, if that is part of the job I can accomodate him"
about the producers absolutely hating the score until the first preview showed enthusiastic reactions to the score. He also added that Zimmer was absolutely brilliant in talking to producers and directors to get the composer's ideas heard.
James Shearman (talking with Robert Townson)
Shearman was talking about his work on Beauty and the Beast and his collaboration with Patrick Doyle. He was very enthusiastic about the new Murder on the Orient Express.
Lebo M. (who talked about how he got from South Africa to collaborating with Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard and Jerry Goldsmith - a truly amazing guy)
There were also talks about the progress made in establishing Vienna as a recording place for film scores with the state of the art recording facilities at the newly renovated Vienna Synchron Stage and recordings done there for film (Inferno/Ghost in the Shell) or TV (The Crown). There were also discussions about the state of film scoring in Austria with (among others) director Stefan Ruzowitzky who made the Oscar-winning The Counterfeitors and his regular composer Marius Ruhland.
And finally there was Danny Elfman talking with journalist Melinda Newman about his career and his approach to scoring. There were great stories about his beginnings as a film composer (being in totally over his head), about director's love for their temp track (I love what you did there but I was so moved by that piece on the temp...). He also talked a little bit about Justice League which was recorded last week in London. He talked about the work doing the mock-up and that the samples for a particularly moving sequence just didn't do justice for what he intended so he persuaded the producers to hire a string orchestra to embellish the mock-up. Let's just say that I am really looking forward to that score.
![](http://<A HREF="https://s20.postimg.org/lajaamigt/Danny_Elfman_02.jpg" TARGET="_BLANK">https://s20.postimg.org/lajaamigt/Danny_Elfman_02.jpg</A>)
