Being a Space Junkie, in honor of the 50th Anniversary(!?) of humans landing on the moon, I'm putting together a Space Race playlist. Of course included are The Right Stuff (1983), Apollo 13 (1995) and whatever I can think of. The Dish (2000) was a fantastic little movie from Australia with Sam Neil and Patrick Warburton with music by Edmond Choi I'm not sure was ever released. When We Left Earth (2009) is another favorite and most likely unreleased documentary from The Discovery Channel narrated by Gary Sinise. Fantastic music that according to the Wikipedia: "...composed by Richard Blair-Oliphant and conducted by Benjamin Wallfisch (Atonement 2007, The Soloist 2009). Music and sound were nominated for a 2009 News and Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Sound."
Being a Space Junkie, in honor of the 50th Anniversary(!?) of humans landing on the moon, I'm putting together a Space Race playlist. Of course included are The Right Stuff (1983), Apollo 13 (1995) and whatever I can think of. The Dish (2000) was a fantastic little movie from Australia with Sam Neil and Patrick Warburton with music by Edmond Choi I'm not sure was ever released. When We Left Earth (2009) is another favorite and most likely unreleased documentary from The Discovery Channel narrated by Gary Sinise. Fantastic music that according to the Wikipedia: "...composed by Richard Blair-Oliphant and conducted by Benjamin Wallfisch (Atonement 2007, The Soloist 2009). Music and sound were nominated for a 2009 News and Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Sound."
The Dish was released by Varese, with a number of songs but a healthy amount of score. I think it's pretty inexpensive these days.
Many thanks for posting Richard Blair-Oliphant's awesome 'When We Left Earth'! I have been hoping for a release for 10 years...some really fantastic themes and performances.
Pardon my shameless self promotion, but 'First to the Moon' came out last month and Notefornote Music did an awesome job releasing my score from the film! All new interviews with the three Apollo 8 astronauts on their lives, space race, and the mission itself.
Matt Morton's score for 'Apollo 11' is also a great space race themed album (works wonders in the film), and I'm very hopeful for a release of 'From the Earth to the Moon' at some point!
Any recommendations for these types of scores pre 'The Right Stuff'?
Many thanks for posting Richard Blair-Oliphant's awesome 'When We Left Earth'! I have been hoping for a release for 10 years...some really fantastic themes and performances.
Pardon my shameless self promotion, but 'First to the Moon' came out last month and Notefornote Music did an awesome job releasing my score from the film! All new interviews with the three Apollo 8 astronauts on their lives, space race, and the mission itself.
Matt Morton's score for 'Apollo 11' is also a great space race themed album (works wonders in the film), and I'm very hopeful for a release of 'From the Earth to the Moon' at some point!
Any recommendations for these types of scores pre 'The Right Stuff'?
I was actually trying to think of any NASA docu dramas before The Right Stuff and I can't. I think it's the first.
And yes, Michael Kamen's From The Earth To The Moon is another big missing gap.
Ooo great List. I'm including Interstellar on my playlist too. It's close enough in spirit. Maybe The Martian also. Don't want to get too far away from music of actual NASA history though. October Sky would count I think.
the "real" Chuck Yeager (still alive) was flying the F104 for this particular scene.
Best ever scene scored by Bill Conti
Still waiting for the complete score and film versions (such as the above) as well as the electronic music by Bill Conti (conceived with the help of Michael Boddicker)
Apollo atmospheres & soundtracks by Brian Eno with Daniel Lanois and Roger Eno from the Al Reinert documentary of 1983. Very eerie and atmospheric with tape-loops and the typical Eno ambient sound. It keeps popping up in all sorts of programs on TV, used and re-used and it’s something of a classic in it’s genre. Very, very good if you’re into this kind of music. Very fitting to the out of this world images.
Gagarin first in space, music George Kallis played by Russian State Symphony orchestra conducted by Sergei Skripka. Big and epic with choir and subtle electronic elements.
In the Shadow of the Moon was a Ron Howard presented, David Sington directed documentary with the Apollo astronauts talking about their flights to the Moon. Very well made. I wasn’t quite convinced in places by the score by Philip Sheppard. For instance, the launch of Apollo 11 was accompanied by traditional American string inspired music (almost fiddle, underlining the pioneer spirit of frontier mentality, nice in theory, but...) that gave the slow motion images of the lifting rocket a kind of laid back, easy ride impression. As if it was a pick-nick outing. In reality this was of course one of the tensest moments of the mission (Theo Kamecke, the maker of the classic documentary Moonwalk One who was present in the control room at the cape described literally ‘the smell of fear’, it was that tense, so much that could go wrong). Compare the same images of this launch in the recent documentary Apollo 11 with a pulsating, tension-driven score by Matt Morton and the whole scene becomes very tense and dangerous. Same images, completely different mood, that’s the power of music.
