Tickets: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Date: Saturday, May 5, 2012 at 7:30 p.m.
Venue: Royal Albert Hall, London

Program (includes)
THE GUNS OF NAVARONE

Composer: Dimitri Tiomkin
Conductor:
Performers: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Concert title: Film Music Gala
Notes: The concert will include music from Jurassic Park, Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, Out of Africa, the Harry Potter films, and more. The Tiomkin work is part of a tribute to World War II films. In addition to The Guns of Navarone there will be music from 633 Squadron, The Dam Busters, The Great Escape, and Battle of Britain.

This month the city of Kremenchug plays host to an international jazz festival that includes a competition for student pianists that will honor native son Dimitri Tiomkin.

Kremenchug, Ukraine

READ: Tiomkin piano improvisation competition in Kremenchug, Ukraine

“Jazz is more than music to the European, it is a new life principle,” said Dimitri Tiomkin upon his return to New York in 1928. The Russian pianist had recently performed the European premiere of George Gershwin’s Concerto in F at the Paris Opéra. So began a lengthy period that lasted well into the 1930s during which Tiomkin spoke frequently of American jazz. The pianist and budding film composer was quoted on the subject in Musical America, the New York American, New York Evening Post, and Hollywood News.

When American composer Charles Wakefield Cadman declared “the motion picture industry will gain neither dignity nor respect from the encouragement of jazz” it was Tiomkin who responded, “modern jazz as composed today is a direct reflection of the spiritual as well as the mental life of the people.” The exchange took place in April 1930, when Tiomkin was still new to the Hollywood film music scene. While his acceptance by the film capital was still a few years away, Tiomkin continued to write music for his wife, choreographer Albertina Rasch. Some of these ballets, such as “Scarlet Jazz” and “Modernistic Impressions of the Blues” featured jazz themes.

READ: Fascinating Rhythms: Dimitri Tiomkin, African American Music, and Early Jazz

Tiomkin’s management company in New York, Bogue Laberge, produced a publicity flier for “Dimitri Tiomkin The Great Russian Pianist.” The first program listed therein was “Debussy and Modern Jazz.”

As a proponent of new music, or modern works, Tiomkin championed music by American composers, such as George Gershwin, Richard Rogers, and Emil Gerstenberger. A typical Tiomkin program included Tiomkin’s own “Quasi Jazz,” “Little Africa” by Rogers, and two jazz-flavored preludes written by Gershwin in 1926. “Little Africa” was first performed by Tiomkin and the work was dedicated to him. Gerstenberger, a fellow Russian-born composer best known as an orchestrator for musical revues on Broadway, wrote some original music for piano.

Tiomkin’s concert programming caused a critic for the New York Evening World to aver, “…it seemed as if there might be something epochal in Mr. Tiomkin’s recital—that it might portend the finis of classic programs and the beginning of a new disposition.”

This new disposition included jazz alongside classical music. Tiomkin told Los Angeles Times music critic Isabel Morse Jones of his intense interest in the music of George Gershwin and American bandleader Paul Whiteman, often referred to as the “King of Jazz.”

John Tynan of Down Beat magazine, America’s leading jazz publication, spoke with composers Johnny Mandel and Dimitri Tiomkin early in 1959 to garner their opinions on the use of “progressive” jazz as underscore in the movies. Mandel had written arrangements for Count Basie’s orchestra and was just getting his start in films with his jazz-based score for I Want to Live. Tiomkin was just coming off of Wild Is the Wind.

One need look no further than chord changes from a famous four-bar passage in “Wild Is the Wind” to see the influence of jazz on composer Tiomkin. Painting Ned Washington’s lyrics, “For my love is like the wind and wild is the wind!” are such extended harmonies as Bbm9#11 and A7#5(b9).

Excerpt from the vocal score for "Wild Is the Wind" in the Dimitri Tiomkin Anthology

The song from the film has since been embraced by jazz singers and recorded by Kenny Burrell, Amel Larrieux, Nina Simone, Esperanza Spalding, and many others.

LISTEN: Singer Nicolas Bearde’s take on “Wild Is the Wind”

It was not unusual for Tiomkin to choose a jazz combo to play source music—music from a seen or implied source on screen—as he did for D.O.A. with “Fisherman’s Jive.” Soon after Wild Is the Wind, Tiomkin went with a twelve-piece jazz combo on the theme song for Town Without Pity. And themes from films were often re-cast in a popular vein, witness “The Fall of Love” from The Fall of the Roman Empire arranged as a slow jazz number for saxophone quintet with guitar, bass, and drums.

Historically “jazz” underscoring for films has been largely written out and not truly improvised. In the late 1920s Tiomkin explained to American musicologist Sigmund Spaeth that he felt skillful jazz players are able to give the feeling of “spontaneity and the mood of extemporizing” even when definite music is followed.

Tiomkin added, “Jazz is a part of modernism, and, being a modernist, I like it.”

Perchance the young Ukrainian pianists who will be performing jazz renditions of Tiomkin’s music will appreciate the composer’s musical journey that began, perhaps like their own, in Kremenchug.

Sources

• “An Ultra-Modernist Goes Jazz,” by Sigmund Spaeth, typescript of article in the Dimitri Tiomkin Collection at USC
• “Paris Loves Irony of Jazz,” Musical America, February 25, 1928
• “Russians Mixed Jazz,” Variety, July 24, 1929
• “Tiomkin Tracking Down Jazz” by Isabel Morse Jones, Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1930
• “Cadman Attacks Jazz of Talkies,” News Times, South Bend, Indiana, April 27, 1930
• “Tiomkin Jazzes ‘Town,’” Variety, Februay 22, 1961

Kremenchug, Ukraine

The city of Kremenchug presents a gala concert for the Dimitri Tiomkin jazz piano improvisation competition at the International Jazz Festival (“Energy”) on May 18, 2012. Young pianists will perform improvisations on selected Tiomkin compositions. Dimitri Tiomkin was born in Kremenchug in 1894.

READ: Tiomkin piano improvisation competition in Kremenchug, Ukraine

Date: Friday, May 18, 2012 at 6:00 p.m.
Venue: Big Hall of the City Palace of Culture, Kremenchug, Poltava region, Ukraine

Program (includes)
Improvisations on selected music by Dimitri Tiomkin.

Composer: Dimitri Tiomkin
Performers: Festival participants (first, second, and third prize-winners)
Notes: Following the gala concert there will be a jam session, with performances by the contest winners

Dimitri Tiomkin

A competition for young pіanіsts, named in honor of Dimitri Tiomkin, will be held in Kremenchug, Ukraine on May 16 through 18 as a part of the second annual International Jazz Festival (“Energy”). Olivia Tiomkin will appear on the large projection screen at the City Palace of Culture to welcome and greet the audience at the gala concert on May 18.

The competition aims to promote the music of Kremenchug’s native son, Dimitri Tiomkin. Born in Kremenchug in 1894, Tiomkin found international fame as a film composer in Hollywood. In addition to popularizing Tiomkin’s music, the competition’s goals are to support talented young pianists and promote improvisation and jazz. Tiomkin developed an interest in jazz during his student days in Russia and further delved into the field while living in New York in the 1920s. One of his first concert works for solo piano was “Quasi Jazz.”

READ: Fascinating Rhythms: Dimitri Tiomkin, African American Music, and Early Jazz

City Palace of Culture, Kremenchug

The Ukrainian competition, open to pianists age 16 to 30, will take place in three rounds. To qualify, candidates must submitt a ten-minute video demo of an improvised composition by May 9. Selected participants will move on to compete in round two. In the second round the Organizing Committee will supply the pianists with music for three Dimitri Tiomkin compositions. Each participant will choose one Tiomkin piece to improvise upon along with a second improvised composition of the performer’s choice. In round three the finalists will perform the Tiomkin competition theme issued after the results of round two, along with either an improvisation of one of the three Tiomkin compositions or an improvised composition of the performer’s choice.

READ: Dimitri Tiomkin and all that jazz (May 2012 blog)

The first, second, and third place winners of the third round of the competition take part in the gala concert on May 18 in the Big Hall of the City Palace of Culture, Kremenchug (pictured, above). Rounds two and three will include public performances in the Small Hall of the Palace of Culture. A lottery will determine the order of performance. The final places and prizes will be announced at the final session of the jury.

Vladimir Solyanik

Serving as jury chairman is pianist-improviser Vladimir Solyanik, a professor at the R. Glier Kiev Institute of Music and emeritus artistic director of the Koktebel Jazz Festival. The distinguished members of the jury include Peter V. Poltarev, Vladimir P. Smolyakov, and Olga Y. Gorbach.

Poltarev is a musicologist, jazz critic, director of the Kiev School of Jazz and Variety Arts, and chairman of the council of experts in jazz music at the Ministry of Culture.

Smolyakov is a composer; the director of the Kremenchug Music School No. 3 named in honor of composer Mikhail Kalachevsky; artistic director and conductor of Slavutych, a folkloric song and dance ensemble; and chief conductor of the Kremenchug Municipal Brass Band.

Gorbach is a pianist-improviser, a senior lecturer in piano, head of the piano department of School of Art No. 5 in Kiev, and director and producer of the popular Ukrainian jazz-band JT-Fresh.

Peter Poltarev

Olga Gorbach

Vladimir Smolyakov

The top five competitors will receive prize money paid in Ukrainian Hryvnia, as follows. First place UAH 4000 (approximately 500 U.S. dollars or 300 British pounds), second place UAH 2500, third place UAH 1500. Two round three finalists will receive UAH 500 each. The jury has the option of awarding a special prize of UAH 300 for an impressive performance of a Dimitri Tiomkin composition to a second round contestant who did not pass to the final.

The event is a municipal project underwritten by the city of Kremenchug. The piano competition was organized by the Kiev School of Jazz and Variety Arts and the school’s director Peter Poltarev. The founders and organizers include the Department of Culture of Kremenchug town council; the Kremenchug Territories Development Agency, a public benefit organization; and Apple Jam, a local jazz band.

The Tiomkin competition follows on last year’s highly successful celebration of Tiomkin’s music in Kremenchug.

READ: Tiomkin Days in Kremenchug

Invited participants will pay an entry fee of UAH 100. Although participants must arrange transportation to Kremenchug, the Organizing Committee will provide each participant with overnight accommodations and two meals per day.

For more information, contact the organizers at orgfest@i.ua.

Schedule

May 16, 2012 (Wednesday)
9:00 to 13:00 Arrival of participants, registration, rehearsal, press conference.
15:00 Grand opening ceremony. Round II begins.
16:30 Break
17:00 Round II continues
19:00 Jury meeting, followed by announcement of Round II results.

May 17, 2012 (Thursday)
9:00 to 17:00 Rehearsal
17:30 Round III
19:00 Break
19:30 Round III continues
20:30 Jury meeting, followed by announcement of Round III results.

May 18, 2012 (Friday)
18:00 Gala concert, with performances by the contest winners (first, second, and third prize)
22:00 Jam session, with performances by the contest winners

Sources

• Personal communications from Patrick Russ in Los Angeles and Iryna Katz in Kremenchug, April 2012
• “REGULATIONS of the young pіanіsts–іmprovіsers competition named by Dimitri Tiomkin” accessed at www.applejam.com on April 30, 2012.
  

Tickets: ENVISO

Date: Saturday, April 14, 2012 at 8:00 p.m.
Venue: Performance Hall at the Irving Arts Center, 3333 N. MacArthur Blvd., Irving, Texas

Program (includes)
Rawhide Theme

Composer: Dimitri Tiomkin
Conductor: Hector Guzman
Performers: ENVISO (formerly the Irving Symphony Orchestra)
Concert title: An Evening with Clint Eastwood

Tickets: Sudbury Symphony Orchestra

Date: Saturday, March 31, 2012 at 8:00 p.m.
Venue: Glad Tidings Auditorium, 1101 Regent Street South, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Program (includes)
THE ALAMO — Suite
HIGH NOON — Suite
Rawhide Theme

Composer: Dimitri Tiomkin
Conductor: Victor Sawa
Performers: Sudbury Symphony Orchestra
Concert title: The Best of the West
Notes: Western attire, including cowboy hats are welcome.

Dewan Filharmonik

The Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra presents “Oscar Winners” at the Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS in Kuala Lumpur on March 31 and April 1, 2012. Music by Dimitri Tiomkin from his Academy Award-winning score for High Noon will be performed along with music by Bernard Herrmann, John Addison, and Franz Waxman.

Tickets: Malaysian Philharmonic

Dates: Saturday, March 31, 2012 at 8:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 1, 2012 at 3:00 p.m.
Venue: Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Program (includes)
HIGH NOON

Composer: Dimitri Tiomkin
Conductor: Mark Fitz-Gerald
Performers: Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, with Lance Ellington, vocals
Concert series and title: POPS: Oscar Winners
Notes: Includes music from An American in Paris to Monsters, Inc.

A new anthology edited by Kathryn Kalinak, Music in the Western: Notes from the Frontier, is chock full of the latest research and findings on the genre. Several of the essays will be of particular interest to Tiomkin scholars and aficionados. The book, part of the Routledge Music and Screen Media Series, contains essays by film studies scholars and musicologists Ross Care, Corey K. Creekmur, Yuna de Lannoy, K. J. Donnelly, Caryl Flinn, Claudia Gorbman, Kalinak, Charles Leinberger, Matthew McDonald, Peter Stanfield, Mariana Whitmer, and Ben Winters.

When one thinks of Dimitri Tiomkin’s music for Westerns, High Noon probably tops the list. In fact, Corey Creekmur’s essay, “The Cowboy Chorus: Narrative and Cultural Functions of the Western Title Song,” opens the book and launches directly into a discussion of Tiomkin’s title song, “Do Not Forsake Me.” The success of the film and song established a new model that incorporated substantial cross promotion between the film and music industries.

BUY: Music in the Western [Hardcover, Paperback, or Kindle Edition]

Moving beyond the influence of High Noon, Music in the Western offers new insights into Tiomkin’s influence on the creative work of directors making Westerns and composers writing for them. For example, in “Soundscape of Kurosawa’s Chambara Westerns,” Yuna de Lannoy points out that certain pieces of music from Rio Bravo inspired Japanese director Akira Kurosawa and the composer Masaru Sato in the making of Yojimbo and its sequel Sanjuro. Check out the section of de Lannoy’s essay, “Yojimbo and Music in the Western,” for the fascinating details.

In “The Dollars Trilogy,” Charles Leinberger discusses the influence of Tiomkin’s “Degüello” theme from Rio Bravo on composer Ennio Morricone for the Western films of Italian director Sergio Leone. Leinberger provides a transcription of the Degüello melody and writes,

The fact that this theme bears a remarkable resemblance to a musical device that Morricone will later make part of his signature style is almost certainly not coincidental.

What fascinates me personally, as a composer, is the effect Tiomkin’s music had in both of these cases. Other composers, rather than imitating Tiomkin’s music or style, discovered a different way to approach a scene musically after seeing and hearing Tiomkin’s music for Westerns.

Music in the Western includes one complete essay on a Tiomkin-scored film, offering Ben Winters thought-provoking examination of the music for The Unforgiven, directed by John Huston. Winters writes, “Tiomkin’s score arguably adds layers of subtlety to the narrative.”

Kathryn Kalinak is Professor of English and Film Studies at Rhode Island College. She delivered the annual Mary Tucker Thorp College Professorship lecture at RIC titled “Scoring the West: Notes on Dimitri Tiomkin, Howard Hawks, and the Western,” in November 2011. In the book’s introduction, she states,

All the essays you are about to read treat the score as a crucial element of the western and remind us what we miss when we ignore the music.

My advice? Don’t ignore film music and don’t miss reading this important new volume that may change the way you think about music in the next Western you see.

Film Music: A Very Short Introduction

If film music is a topic of interest to you, you will want a copy of Kalinak’s Film Music: A Very Short Introduction. Offered both in paperback and as a Kindle e-book for under US$10, this affordable little book covers film music around the globe and is highly readable.

Don’t let the size or sub-title fool you. The book is jam-packed with information and excels in its overview of music in world cinema. Even if you think you know the history and common practice of film music, you will probably learn something new from Kalinak’s concise history.

Filled with interesting insights and observations culled from her familiarity with film music literature and her wide-ranging knowledge of the subject, this tome deserves a place on your literal or digital bookshelf. It also makes a nice inexpensive gift.

BUY: Film Music [Paperback] or Film Music [Kindle Edition]

Tippi Hedren

The New Queen’s Hall Orchestra presents “Hitchcock and Hollywood” at the Fairfield Concert Hall, Croydon, England on March 17, 2012. A suite from Dimitri Tiomkin’s score for Strangers on a Train will be performed alongside music by Bernard Herrmann, John Addison, and Franz Waxman.

Tickets: New Queen’s Hall Orchestra

Date: Saturday, March 17, 2012 at 7:30 p.m.
Venue: Fairfield Concert Hall, Croydon, England

Program (includes)
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN — Suite

Composer: Dimitri Tiomkin
Conductor: John Farrer
Guest: Tippi Hedren
Performers: New Queen’s Hall Orchestra
Concert title: Hitchcock and Hollywood
Notes: Hitchcock and Hollywood features special guest Tippi Hedren, star of Marnie and The Birds, along with clips from selected films. The concert is billed as “Bringing the Great Days of Hollywood to Life.”

Buy the CD from La-La Land Records

Buy the CD from Screen Archives Entertainment

The recording was produced by veteran soundtrack producer Didier C. Deutsch and Mark G. Wilder. Wilder mastered the music using elements from the Sony Music vault. The 24-page booklet contains liner notes by Jeff Bond; the art direction is by Jim Titus. Sample tracks for the “Overture,” “Pax Romana,” and two additional tracks can be heard at La-La Land Records. The limited edition release, featuring more than one hour of music, is catalog number LLLCD 1202. Last fall La-La Land and Sony released 55 Days at Peking.

The music from the film is also available on a double CD produced by James Fitzpatrick for Prometheus Records with Dimitri Tiomkin’s complete 140-minute score for The Fall of the Roman Empire newly recorded by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Nic Raine.