Tweet to Win NURSE JACKIE soundtrack by Wendy and Lisa

Just last night, the composing duo, WENDY AND LISA, won the Emmy for Outstanding Original Title Theme Music.  Now you can share in their win by winning 1 of 3 copies of the NURSE JACKIE (Season 1) soundtrack!

Here's what you do:

1) Follow us on twitter @tracksounds

2) Tweet this:  "Congrats @WendyandLisa for your Emmy win! #tracksounds"

* You must be a US Resident to win.

Winners will be selected at random on Monday August 30th!

New Scorefront Profile: Penka Kouneva

Our newest addition to the Scorefront: Penka Kouneva!

Penka Kouneva is a Sundance Composer Fellow and a Hollywood film composer who blends her native Eastern-European influences with modern orchestra, medieval chant, rock, and electronica. Recently, she composed additional score for the video games PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE FORGOTTEN SANDS and TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN working alongside composer Steve Jablonsky. Her solo scores include the horror feature MIDNIGHT MOVIE, the crime drama THE THIRD NAIL and music for FORENSIC FILES, DOG FIGHTS and MODERN MARVELS.

Check out the full profile which includes streaming music from one of her latest projects, PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE FORGOTTEN SANDS.

Visit Penka Kouneva's profile

SoundCast Interview with Author Sean Williams

Interview:  Sean Williams
Recorded August 6, 2010
Published August 12, 2010

SEAN WILLIAMS, author of the novelization of STAR WARS THE FORCE UNLEASHED, the recently released, STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC – FATAL ALLIANCE, shares about his recent works, his passion for film music and what he listens to when writing. He also shares about some of his all-time favorite soundtracks, why the year, 1981, is such an important year and how he faced the difficult choice between writing and composing music.

Episode Highlights

00:26 - Introduction
02:30 - Living and Working in Adelaide, Australia
03:49 - Writing in the Star Wars universe
14:00 - What do you listen to while writing?
14:00 - Inception reception
16:37 - Your favorite Film Scores
22:30 - Choosing between Writing and Composing
26:49 - 1981:  The Pinnacle of Sci-fi and Music
31:32 - Thoughts on Film and Game Music Today


Music Clips (Select music clips contained in this podcast)

00:00 - "The Sarlacc Unleashed" (The Force Unleashed) Mark Griskey
10:22 - "March" (Knights of the Old Republic) by Mark Griskey
15:14 - "The Passage of Time" (Battlestar Galactica) by Bear McCreary
17:00 - "Main Theme" (Alien) by Jerry Goldsmith
20:51 - "The Grace of Undomniel" (LOTR: Return of the King) by Howard Shore
30:00 - "Main Titles " (Blade Runner) by Vangelist
39:24 - "Main Theme" (The Force Unleashed) Jesse Harlin

Download the episode here


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Alan Wake (Game Soundtrack) by Petri Alanko - Review

"A Dreamy Summer"
Review by Marius Masalar

While film buffs enjoyed INCEPTION as a late-summer exploration of dreams, gamers have already had some time to delve into ALAN WAKE, a remarkably story-driven affair developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Microsoft Games on the Xbox 360. In a nutshell, Alan Wake is a thriller that follows an author struggling with writer’s block as he copes with the disappearance of his wife and other bizarre happenings while on vacation in the small, isolated town of Bright Falls. The setting is extremely reminiscent of Silent Hill, and the story’s episodic narrative is just as deeply involved with psychological twists and turns. It is a distinctive game, full of cinematic and complex situations, and its musical score follows suit. PETRI ALANKO, the little-known Finnish composer for the title, describes this first foray into game scoring as “the easiest tough job ever.”

Read the full review

World Soundtrack Academy Announces 2010 Nominees

World Soundtrack Awards Announces 2010 Nominees

Zimmer, Desplat, Horner and Burwell lead the pack with 2 nominations

Ghent - The World Soundtrack Academy has announced the list of its nominees for the 2010 Awards to be presented in three categories: Film Composer of the Year, Best Original Score of the Year and Best Original Song Written Directly for a Film. The names of the winners will be announced at the World Soundtrack Awards 10th Anniversary Gala on Saturday, October 23, the closing night of the Ghent International Film Festival.

The nominees the World Soundtrack Awards 2010:


Film Composer of the Year

· Alexandre Desplat – Fantastic Mr. Fox, New Moon, Julie & Julia, The Ghost Writer

· Hans Zimmer – Sherlock Holmes, Despicable Me, It's Complicated

· Danny Elfman – Alice in Wonderland, The Wolfman

· John Powell – Green Zone, How To Train Your Dragon, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Knight & Day

· Carter Burwell – The Blind Side, A Serious Man, Where the Wild Things Are, Howl, The Kids Are All Right


Best Original Film Score of the Year

· Fantastic Mr. Fox – Alexandre Desplat

· Avatar – James Horner

· Where the Wild Things Are – Carter Burwell & Karen Orzolek

· A Single Man – Abel Korzeniowski

· Sherlock Holmes – Hans Zimmer


Best Original Song Written Directly For a Film

· ‘Almost there’ from “The Princess and the Frog” music & lyrics by Randy Newman performed by Anika Noni Rose

· ‘I see you’ from “Avatar” music by James Horner & Simon Franglen lyrics by James Horner, Simon Franglen, Kuk Harrell - performed by Leona Lewis

· ‘I want to come home’ from “Everybody’s fine” music & lyrics by Paul McCartney - performed by Paul McCartney

· ‘Sticks & Stones’ from “How to train your dragon” music & lyrics by Jon Birgisson -performed by Jonsi

· The Weary Kind from “Crazy heart” music & lyrics by Ryan Bingham & T-Bone Burnett - performed by Ryan Bingham (& Jeff Bridges)


Following the Awards presentations, 11 world class composers will be appearing live in concert including Oscar-winners Howard Shore (Lord Of The Rings trilogy), Elliot Goldenthal (Frida, Interview With A Vampire), Gabriel Yared (The English Patient), Gustavo Santaolalla (Babel, Brokeback Mountain), Stephen Warbeck (Shakespeare In Love) as well as Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks), Craig Armstrong (Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Ray) Alberto Iglesias (The Kite Runner, Volver), Bruno Coulais (The Chorus), Frédéric Devreese (Un Soir, Un Train) and brilliant young composer Nico Muhly (The Reader).

The World Soundtrack Academy was founded in 2001 by the Ghent International Film Festival to celebrate the role of music in film and honor film composers. The WSA Academy now has over 300 international members comprised of composers, film professionals, record label executives and other representatives of the film music business.

At the end of August, the Academy Board will announce the 5 nominees for the category ‘Discovery of the Year 2010’. In addition to the Awards presented by the Academy, film music fans around the world can vote for the best soundtrack of the year (see www.worldsoundtrackacademy.com).

SoundCast Episode 17 - Flash Over Substance

Episode 17: Flash Over Substance

Recorded August 3, 2010

Published August 6, 2010

Flash Over Substance:  the crew gets back into compilations, Inception, Tron: Legacy, Predators, and the trend of big, Hollywood films focusing on flashy visuals at possibly the expense of everything else...including the music.

Episode Highlights

00:30 - Intro and Google Voice invasion

01:44 - Expecting the Expendables

04:00 - Compilation continuation

10:30 - Torchwood Talk + eMusic

14:00 - Inception reception

25:20 - Tron: Pre-Legacy

34:33 - Predator:  The Return of Helen San

41:59 - Pillars and Schmuks

43:59 - Flash Over Substance

Music Clips (Select music clips contained in this podcast)

10:35 - "What's Occuring" (Torchwood: Children of Men) Ben Foster

15:56 - "Half-Remembered Dream" (Inception) by Hans Zimmer

32:56 - "Predator Attack"

34:33 - "Hanzo's Last Stand" (Predators) by John Debney

42:38 - "Preluce to a Schmuk" (Dinner for Schmucks) by Theodore Shapiro

45:30 - " " (Prince of Persia) Harry Gregson-Williams

46:12 - "Earthbenders" (The Last Airbender) James Newton Howard

47:31 - "Prologue: Book II..." (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) by John Williams

49:30 - "Autobots" (Transformers) by Steve Jablonsky

54:40 - "There's a God in You" (Clash of the Titans) by Ramin Djawadi

55:38 - "Bioluminescence of the Night" (Avatar) James Horner

Download the episode here

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Predators (Soundtrack) by John Debney - Review

Bittersweet Nostalgia
Review by Marius Masalar

For JOHN DEBNEY, who spent a great part of this year working to produce the score to IRON MAN 2 (the album for which was only recently released), PREDATORS was by his own admission a much more fast-paced and brief scoring project with significantly different challenges. Not the least of which was filling the shoes of the series’ first composer, Alan Silvestri, whose iconic music for the first film still represents one of cinema’s most accomplished action/horror scores.

DEBNEY’s score attempts to do two major and obvious things: serve as a strong homage to Silvestri’s original score, and integrate that with his own sound to reflect the new film’s contemporary feel. Unfortunately, whether because of time pressures or strange directorial initiatives or some other reason, he fails to adequately achieve either of his two goals, which makes the generous 66-minute album drag on unpleasantly. In fact it isn’t so much unpleasant as surprisingly uninteresting given that this is the man who brought us masterpieces of sophistication and musicality like CUTTHROAT ISLAND and, more recently, LAIR.

Read the full review