Director Peter Jackson in the gallery of the Wellington Town Hall during the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's recording sessions for 'The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug'. Photo / Hagen Hopkins.
Director Peter Jackson in the gallery of the Wellington Town Hall during the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s recording sessions for ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’. Photo / Hagen Hopkins.
Russell Baille from The New Zealand Herald gets the low-down on the recording process at Wellington Town Hall last month. He was present last month as the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra laboured mightily with orchestrator Conrad Pope, Peter Jackson and senior audio engineer Peter Cobbin to bring composer Howard Shore’s musical vision to life.

My favourite quote from Conrad Pope:

“It always pays to have great performers. Whenever you are in front of an orchestra you are in front of almost 2000 years of musical experience if you think about it. So you are taking that expressiveness and you are unleashing that. If you have a digital thing it is only one person. That is why it’s so remarkable to have that kind of power in this orchestra here.”

Continue reading “Peter Jackson talks about the musical score for The Desolation of Smaug”

NZSO recording the Desolation of Smaug soundtrack at Wellington Town Hall.
NZSO recording DOS.
Orchestral recording for The Desolation of Smaug soundtrack in the Wellington Town Hall has concluded. It also seems as though the choral(?) work occurring in London for the soundtrack is almost complete. It’s all very hush-hush though.

Additional Orchestrator and Conductor Conrad Pope reported on his Facebook:

With the superb first trumpet of the NZSO, Jon Dante celebrating the end of a series of some 29(?) sessions with the NZSO. Making music with the NZSO was wonderful and I look forward to working with them again — not only are they a superb concert orchestra, they are a remarkable “film orchestra” — they read difficult music accurately right out of “the chute”. But now, after 3 pictures, recording sessions in Wellington and London, since June — it’s time to sleep in, rest up and fly home and await the next assignment.

Continue reading “Wellington recording for The Hobbit soundtrack recording completed”

HobbitAUJOSTWe are happy to finally announce that the 5 lucky winners of TORn & WaterTower Music’s “Hobbit Day” mathom are Iván, TammyConnor, Reagan V & Meaghan M.

You can expect an email from our friends at WaterTower Music with the code to download your very own digital copy of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey soundtrack. Congratulations and we hope Howard Shore’s wondrous music brings you many enjoyable moments.

Many thanks also to the few hundred fans who entered this giveaway. If you don’t already have the soundtrack, consider purchasing the Standard Edition from iTunes or Amazon, or better yet, the Special Edition from iTunes or Amazon.

 

HobbitAUJOST

As we celebrate September 22 and the birthdays of two of our favourite hobbits, Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, we are joining with our friends over at WaterTower Music to give away some special little mathoms – 5 digital copies of Howard Shore’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Original Soundtrack.

All you have to do is email earl@theonering.net with the subject “Hobbit Day” before midnight EST on September 22.

Howard Shore Thanks to Ringer Roheryn on the TORn messageboards for spotting this little news story about recording for the Desolation of Smaug soundtrack!


The New Zealand public has essentially lost access to Wellington’s Town Hall while the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra records the score for the second Hobbit movie.

The orchestra last month cancelled its Heights of Passion tour to free up time to record the score.

In a public notice today, Wellington City Council announced ”strict security” was in place at the Town Hall from now until the end of next month while the orchestra records the film score.

There will be no public access during this time, the notice said.

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