Howard Shore and Bear McCreary To Score Middle-Earth Series

For the last few days it was being reported that Howard Shore was in discussions to return to Middle-Earth via the Amazon TV series.  Now The One Ring is reporting that the ink has dried on the contracts for not just Howard Shore but also Bear McCreary to compose music for the series.  

Howard Shore, just in case didn't know, is the one behind all the music of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies.  Bear McCreary has credentials nearly as long as Howard Shore but his focus has mostly been scoring video games (God of War) and TV (Battlestar Galactica, Snowpiercer, The Walking Dead). 

The collaboration should produce some great music.  While the division of labor has not been explained, Shore remains highly in demand so likely his involvement will be to help compose integrate his previous work into the new work so that it seems like a natural fit, while also creating new themes around characters and locations. My guess is he will help McCreary create the skeleton of the series sound while McCreary will do most of the heavy lifting with the episode to episode scoring work.

Score Samples from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Soundtrack

One of the joys a new edition to The Hobbit trilogy is it means a new edition to the excellent series of scores from composer Howard Shore. Just like last year, the soundtrack for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug will come in two editions - the regular version and the special edition that will be released on December 10th, just days before the movie itself. Amazon has just the special edition and regular edition available for pre-order but really there is no reason to get the regular edition.

To tease the upcoming release, WaterTower Music (part of Warner Bros) has released a sampler with the full track list for the special edition (below) that lets you here snippets from each of the tracks. To no surprise it sounds excellent and makes me look forward to hearing the rest. You can also listen to "A Feast of Starlight" on the official website.

Howard Shore Audio Interview

ClassicFM has posted a new interview with The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings composer Howard Shore. In the interview he discusses writing the music for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, working with Peter Jackson again, the influence the novels have on his writing and finishing the movie score. The 11 minute interview can be found here. The soundtrack will be out on December 11th in standard and extended edition. You can also preview it. (via TOR)

SDCC 2012: The Hobbit Panel with Movie Footage

Saturday was a big day for the San Diego Comic-Con as lots of movie panels were held including the panel for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey where 12 and half minutes of The Hobbit footage were shown. The footage has not been posted online but Peter Jackson indicated that at least some of it would be used in an upcoming production video. The info below is culled from Heat Vision, Collider and The One Ring.

Footage Description
- Shot of the Shire as voice over of Gandalf saying "Far to the east lies..."
- Gandalf, Bilbo and dwarves at Bag End discussing goal of recovering their treasure from the dragon Smaug with Thorin saying "Rumors have begun to spread,” he says, “The dragon Smaug has not been seen in many years… Perhaps the vast wealth of our people lies unprotected … perhaps it is time to take back Erebor!"
- Discussion of a plan with need of a burglar to steal a map from Smaug that will help with taking Erebor. Something Bilbo agrees with not realizing that is his purpose in the adventure.

The Lord of the Rings Symphony: Six Movements for Orchestra & Chorus

Below is a 50 minute video from "The Lord of the Rings Symphony: Six Movements for Orchestra & Chorus" tour which was composed by Howard Shore who will be returning to Middle-Earth for the Hobbit films. If a fan of the music, just worth watching for the "live" orchestra and chorus as this beautiful music plays. The live performance is available as CD or for download.

Howard Shore: A Composer's Dream

Below is a short film called "A Composer's Dream" that provides insight in how composer Howard Shore creates his great work including The Lord of the Rings' fantastic music. It was produced by the National Film Board of Canada in co-operation with the National Arts Centre and the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards Foundation for 2011 Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards. (via TheOneRing)

Shore Returns to Middle-Earth

Academy Award winning composer Howard Shore is returning to Middle=Earth to score The Hobbit for Peter Jackson in an interview in The Province. Shore was the composer for The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The interview was part of a promotion for next week's performance of his score from the trilogy by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. (via One Ring)

And now it looks like Shore is going back to Middle Earth with Rings director Peter Jackson. The long-awaited two-part movie adaptation of Tolkien's The Hobbit is in the works.

"We've talked about making these movies for many years, at least since 2002," Shore says.

"It looks like finally it's going to be happening. I'll be working on it for the next three years -- it's going to consume a lot of my time and work now."

Rings Composer Howard Shore Interview

AICN has posted an interview with Howard Shore, the composer of the score for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Howard Shore is going to the "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings Score Spectacular" at the Radio City Music Hall this weekend. In the interview he discusses the upcoming performance and how the live performances of the score got started. Below is his response to working on The Hobbit films with the full interview here.

IR: How about The Hobbit films? Are you already thinking about how you are scoring it or what you may do different from the previous work?
HS: There's lots of discussion going on. I've been in a ton of meetings. There's been a long period of reading, research, and just getting ready for the several years that I'll be back in Middle Earth - a place that I love. It's a great world to go into and I just want to finish all the projects that I'm doing so I can just enter back into that world.