2014 was the first year that featured a full symphonic orchestra performing 15-minute musical tributes to all 5 oscar-nominated movie scores, with the composers themselves conducting! (including John Williams & Alexander Desplat)

Also, each of the year’s nominated songs was performed, most often by the original artists.  In the photo below, the husband-and-wife songwriting team of Robert Lopez & Kristen Anderson-Lopez offer their passionate version of their huge hit Let It Go! from the movie, Frozen.  I can be seen behind Kristen to the right:

Best score went deservedly to Steven Price’s soundtrack to Gravity…

In late November 2014, I was at Sony studios (old MGM) recording a film scored by Danny Elfman. I signed a Non-Disclosure, so let’s just say it was sultry, atmospheric music to a picture based on a highly popular book whose title certainly does not feature “many hues of black and white” ! No truth to the rumor that the Marquis de Sade produced…

One day while working on this feature, all computers at Sony had been hacked and shut down! Evidently, the digital assault was tied to the intended Christmas Day release of The Interview, the comedy about an attempt to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. North Korea had threatened Sony that it would be launching an attack, in this case a cyber one. Below is a photo of 1 of the 4 helicopters that hovered over the studio for hours!

(close up:)             

(Click picture for movie!)  Photo by Dawn Simmons

Bidwell’s Path has just hit FINALIST status in the UK Songwriting Contest for the year 2014.  Appropriately, there are a lot of Celtic, Dark Age, and English musical references in this tune.