CD REVIEW - QUANTUM QUEST: A CASSINI SPACE ODYSSEY + NEWS FROM CINEMEDIA


Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey
Music by Shawn K. Clement
Clemistry Music Promo
34 Tracks 38:28 mins

Back on 2nd July I published a press release kindly forwarded to me by Costa Communications, regarding the Large Format, 3-D, computer generation animated film Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey, which will be released worldwide in large format and then in regular 3-D theatres in September. The voice cast will be highly appealing to sci-fi fans, with both Captain Kirk's William Shatner and Chris Pine, Brent Spiner, Samuel L. Jackson, Hayden Christensen, James Earl Jones and Mark Hamill all featured, as well as first man on the Moon Neil Armstrong.
Composer of the film's music, Shawn K. Clement and co-director and writer/producer Dr. Harry Kloor will speak at Comic-Con on Thursday July 23rd in Ballroom 20 at the San Diego Convention Center. Clement has been composing, largely for episodic TV, for the best part of 20 years, working on shows such as Celebrity Fit Club, Brainiac: History Abuse and a few episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Costa Communications also kindly sent me a promotional CD of Clement's score, which was recorded with an 82 piece orchestra at Skywalker Sound, and also incorporates real NASA-discovered "space sounds." There are no titles to the 34 tracks and, as you can imagine, looking at the playing time, many of them are quite brief, but overall there's a good flow.
The score gets underway with a brief, but adventurous opening track, which is followed by a quite menacing track 2, which makes good use of the aforesaid "space sounds." These sounds when they occur remind somewhat of Jerry Goldsmith's V'ger music for Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
The remainder of the score alternates from exciting, rhythmic action to more powerful and menacing music, with moments of calm and even pride and wonder, with just the odd cartoony comical piece thrown in, and a little mysticism, Heroes style, towards the end, and the triumphant final cue. Despite a couple of moments when a little march theme, which seems more suited to something like Mel Gibson's The Patriot, crops up, it's a good old fashioned score in the finest space opera traditions, with plenty to admire and be entertained by.
Unfortunately, as I write, there is no news of a commercial release for the score, which is a pity, so you'll just have to get along to see the film in September and enjoy it as part of the whole experience.


News from CineMedia:

BEAR MCCREARY ANNOUNCES WINNER OF DESIGN CONTEST

Arild W. Tvergrov Wins Contest and Designs Battlestar Galactica Orchestra Website

(July 16, 2009- Los Angeles, CA) – Norwegian web designer Arild W. Tvergrov was named the winner of the “Design the BSG Orchestra Website” contest by composer and orchestra founder Bear McCreary. The 23 year-old developer’s winning design can be viewed at www.bsgorchestra.com.

Arild W. Tvergrov is a web designer and developer at the Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo in Norway. His current web projects include Final Fantasy Norge (http://finalfantasy.no/), the largest Scandinavian Final Fantasy fansite, The Norwegian Latin America Research Network (http://www.norlarnet.uio.no/), Network for Asian Studies (http://www.asianettverket.no/url/forsiden/), and of course The Battlestar Galactica Orchestra Website.

As part of the prize he has won, Tvergrov will be flown to San Diego for the July 23^rd performance of The Music of Battlestar Galactica at the House of Blues as part of Comic Con. He will be given all access to the band’s sound check, and will be given Bear’s personal baton from that evening, a poster, and the Battlestar Galactica: Season 4 soundtrack all autographed by Bear and/or the members of the Battlestar Galactica Orchestra.

Battlestar Galactica composer and Battlestar Galactica Orchestra founder Bear McCreary was recently called one of the top 10 composers “that make space adventures epic” by www.io9.com. His work on the television series Battlestar Galactica has been described as offering “some of the most innovative music on TV today,” by Variety, and his blog www.bearmccreary.com/blog, which features in-depth inside looks at the process of scoring Battlestar Galactica, was called "one of the best blogs in the business. It's a fascinating look at the process of making music for film and television and the care he takes with aligning the score with the twists and turns of each character's plot lines," by The Hollywood Reporter.

McCreary announced the design contest on his blog on June 21, 2009. “I was thrilled with the quality of the submissions to our contest,” McCreary said. Because of that he decided to give a special limited edition signed CD to all of the contest entrants.

“Arild's design is unique and captures the spirit of the BSG Orchestra,” explained McCreary. “Were it not for this web design contest, I would never have had the chance to witness the dedication and enthusiasm he brings to his projects. I greatly look forward to meeting him backstage in San Diego."

Tvergrov is doubly excited to have won the contest – not only is he an up and coming web designer, he is a true fan of McCreary’s! “This is surreal,” said Tvergrov. “I am soon off to San Diego to meet my favorite composer and most certainly one of the greatest musical geniuses alive — Bear McCreary … I hope the design is to his liking and that it at least remotely measures up to the ingenious work of Bear and his band.”

To see the winning entry visit the Battlestar Galactica Orchestra’s new website at www.bsgorchestra.com.