CD REVIEW - ALEXANDRA + NEWS FROM COSTA COMMUNICATIONS


Alexandra
Music by Andrey Sigle
MovieScore Media MMS-09009
10 Tracks 46:14 mins

It's always nice to be able to sample the work of a new composing name to me, and here we have Russian composer Andrey Sigle's score for Alexandra, a film nominated for the 2007 Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film festival, which deals with an elderly woman's visit to her grandson at his army camp inside Chechnya. The film has just been released on DVD in the U.S.
Sigle's score is performed by the Symphony Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre and opens with "Parting," a lush, expressive symphonic piece full of yearning and sadness. A good deal of the score has a very classical feel to it, very much in the traditions of the great Russian film music composers of the past, Shostakovich and Prokofiev; and "Road" is similarly rich and expressive, with telling brass and woodwind solos. A different side to the score however is audible in "In the Tent," a folksy and quite lovely accordion-lead piece, with a winding flute duet at its centre. The lovely "Meeting" sees a return to full orchestra, with its tender string writing and expressive parts for flutes and woodwinds. A winding woodwind figure flows through "Motion," as the cue wends its way toward its somewhat wary conclusion. The theme from "In the Tent" receives a welcome reprise for full orchestra in "Mood." The longest track on the album follows, "Walk," which is a bittersweet affair, at times quite lovely and delicate, at others distinctly melancholy, with an almost heartbreaking violin solo. "Dust of Roads" is similar in style to "Motion," though more developed, with variations on themes that have gone before.
The penultimate track, "Lyrical Guitar" again reprises the "In the tent" theme, and its tentative nature suggests that this may be an on-screen performance. The final track is entitled "Monologue" and is something of a wasted track for those of us who do not speak Russian for, as the title would suggest, it features dialogue and music from the film.
This is a lovely score, which I would highly recommend in particular to lovers of both melodic classical music and symphonic film music of the golden days. I hope to hear more of this composer's work in the future. Go to www.moviescoremedia.com/alexandra.html for more info, samples and to download your copy.

From Costa Communications:-

“UNSUNG GUITAR HERO”

COMPOSER, SONG-WRITER, SINGER & MULTI-INSTRUMENTALIST

ROBERT ANTHONY NAVARRO

contributes his original music to Fast & Furious

Collaborates on top videogames and writes songs with Hal David!

Los Angeles, CA – Film & videogame composer Robert Anthony Navarro is not so quietly creating a name for himself as a new voice in both film and videogames. In an era where games and films were beginning to get dominated by orchestral scores, Navarro is embracing his rock roots and bringing his original rock compositions to the worlds of both film and videogames; blending with the classical as well as standing alone. His original guitar-infused music can be heard in the number one action film, Fast and Furious. He has collaborated his original rock compositions to complement orchestral scores in the videogames: Naruto: The Broken Bond & Rise Of A Ninja, Driver 76’, Surf’s Up, and American Chopper: Full Throttle. As a songwriter, Robert Anthony Navarro recently collaborated on pop songs with legendary Academy Award winning lyricist Hal David (88 years old); the tracks, originally licensed for commercial use are now publicly available on iTunes and amazon.com.

Robert Anthony Navarro was born in New York. The son of a Latin entertainer and a Playboy Bunny, and the God Son of Latin percussion legend Tito Puente. His eclectic musical influence is the reason that his original compositions span rock and pop to heavy metal. Navarro studied guitar with various teachers including Kirk Hellie (guitarist for Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols), Bruce Bouillet of Racer-X, to classical guitar with Ron Borczon and Eric Jones. Eventually Navarro attended Cal State Northridge (CSUN) for Music Theory. His studies also included Rock at Musicians Institute to classical studies at Pierce and Occidental College. Balancing a full schedule of classes and private instruction, Navarro began teaching guitar, and eventually took over the students of his former instructor Kirk Hellie. Simultaneously, he played bass and fronted for the OXY Jazz band which evolved into the Pop/Punk/Alternative group known as Trip. Trip released their highly acclaimed CD ‘Naked’ and toured nationally.

In 2001, Robert accepted the position of Music Director for Associated Production Music (APM Music) - a production music library co-owned by EMI and UMG. Eventually Navarro began singing on various CD projects, as well as producing, recording and composing CDs of his own including a co-production with film composer Jeff Rona, various projects with Jeffrey Cain and Leslie Van Trease of Remy Zero, Scott Rockenfield and Michael Wilton of Queensrÿche. He was named executive producer of the APM Custom Music division. Working directly with A-list clients, Navarro and his team’s credits include ESPN’s Monday Night Football Theme (2007) and The Kansas City Royals Theme. To date, Robert has produced 16 library CDs and over 1500 individual tracks for APM related productions. Navarro left APM in 2007 to pursue composing, songwriting and producing.

Robert lives and works in Los Angeles, California, where he splits his time between music supervision, composition for film, TV and video games, producing artists, and reinventing himself