#matt dunkley

No Time to Die Official Theme Song by Billie Eilish 

Billie Eilish has released the theme song to James Bond’s No Time to Die. (For a short preview version with James Bond clips check here.) The song was written by Eilish and brother Finneas with orchestral arrangements by Hans Zimmer and Matt Dunkley and guitar by Johnny Marr. The song is undoubtedly Bond.

Friday night Your Humble Narrator had excellent seats to one of the more peculiar orchestral concerts I've ever attended: The World of Hans Zimmer.

(apologies in advance for my atrocious performance photographs)

My pal Kate kindly offered me a ticket to the Arizona stop of the show's current U.S. tour, at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale. I had never heard of it, but it clearly has a following; though not quite a sell-out, the place was full and the crowd screamed and cheered like they would have for Barry Manilow or Kenny G, at least.

At a glance, the audience members looked roughly like the folks you might see at a film festival. Zimmer, as you may know, is a prolific, Oscar-winning German composer of film scores, usually for big Hollywood blockbusters. He wasn't present at the concert, except in video segments during which his giant mug bantered with the maestro, Matt Dunkley, or chatted onscreen with the likes of Jerry Bruckheimer or Guy Ritchie. The show is a multi-media event, with lighting effects and video screens showing expressionistic patterns...

...or clips from the movies.

But the stars were the onstage performers; according to Dunkley, 60 musicians from 18 countries, from Ukraine to Brazil to Lithuania to Turkey to Israel to Kenya to Lebanon to Northern Ireland to the United States, playing and singing lengthy suites from Driving Miss Daisy, The Rock, Gladiator, Interstellar, Dune, Pearl Harbor, The Prince of Egypt, Wonder Woman and others. They made up, quite simply, the most glamorous-looking orchestra I've ever seen.

Kate got her tickets from the solo cellist, Timothée Berte-Renou, seen here, or rather not visible here, behind a column of otherworldly light...

Again, the photo does him zero justice, but the French native's long flowing hair and romance-novel costumes gave him quite the dramatic stage presence as his mournful strings essentially stood in for the voice of Billie Eilish in the Bond movie No Time to Die. He was one of the stars of the evening, but far from the only one.

The show's apparent strategy was to let top-notch classical musicians behave onstage like rock stars, dancing, mugging, emoting, interacting, working the crowd, goofing around. The audience ate it up. 

The finale was from The Lion King...

...and the encore was a rousing suite from Pirates of the Caribbean. 

Genius though Zimmer unquestionably is, after hearing such a generous helping of his music all at once, I must admit that a large percentage of his work seems a little on the unvaried side. Some of his scores are distinctive, like Driving Miss Daisy with its delightful if ear-wormy clarinet theme. But when it comes to his action and superhero movies, I'm not sure I could confidently identify, without the intros and clips, which solemn, brooding, bombastic score went with The Rock or Interstellar or a Batman flick. On their own merits, however, each of them is potent.   

Billie Eilish Releases Bond Theme “No Time To Die”

The post Billie Eilish Releases Bond Theme “No Time To Die” is published on LIVE music blog.

The new single from Billie Eilish, “No Time To Die,” has been released as the official theme song to new, upcoming James Bond film. Like most of the Eilish output lately, she has her brother FINNEAS on production along with Stephen Lipson, and Hans Zimmer and Matt Dunkleycontributed orchestral…

Snow Palms ~ Everything Ascending

Here’s a fun one, as Snow Palms returns with a new lineup and a new sound.  At first, Snow Palms was a solo venture for mallet instrumentalist David Sheppard with friends; Origin and Echo made a big impact when it was released in late 2017.  Now the act is a duo including Matt Gooderson (synth, tape, piano).  But perhaps today for Everything Ascending, we can consider Snow Palms a quartet, as…

Matt Dunkley ~ Six Cycles

After years of involvement in film and TV composition, including contributions to Inception and The Dark Knight, Matt Dunkley has teamed up with the Babelsberg Film Orchestra to create a short album that sounds like – you guessed it – a soundtrack.  The difference is that this is not a soundtrack, but a fully-orchestrated series of dramatic, moving works.  Dunkley’s time has finally come around.…