This was brought up, kinda, in the program thread, that a lot of teams/skaters all jump on using the music of the movie that won best oscar. This year it's the Artist (which I believe also won best "soundtrack").
It got me thinking, that while everyone jumps on the bandwagon the season after teh oscar wins, that doesn't guaruntee that it will become a "forever warhorse". Some do (Man in the Iron mask comes to mind), but most don't. Why is that?
For starters Bizet is dead so no more Carmen's. Same with Tschaikovsky and all of the other composer's of skating's best loved warhorses.
On the other hand there are new movies every year and IMO the best (and absolutely best paid) composers living today write movie scores.
Younger skaters in particular not to mention the audiences relate more easily to music that is popular.
How many skaters have used "Pirates" the past few seasons? Will it continue? Probably not because it will be replaced by a new movie score that has captured the the skater's and public's imagination.
Last edited by janetfan; 08-18-2012 at 06:43 PM.
Man in the Iron Mask didn't come anywhere close to the Oscars. Just had a soundtrack that works really well for this type of performance art. There's an ingrained level of prestige, though, that makes the Oscar-nominated selections automatically acceptable to skate to.
That's what I get when I just use the first thing that pops in my head
I think Pirates will last! What little kid doesn't like Talk Like a Pirate day? However, we probably won't see seniors skating to it much longer, that I agree with.
(Geez, I didn't know it was coming up...International Talk Like A Pirate Day is September 19th, apparently every year)
yeah it's not just a little kid thing. Pirates arrrrrrrrrrr gonna be here a long while yet, me thinks.
Actually, more often than not, the music that wins the Oscar for best score remains unused by top skaters. I pay particular attention because in the last few decades, a lot of the best score winners wind up being some of my favorite music. And I keep hoping skaters would use them, but no one does.
Best score winners I wish more skaters would use:
Tan Dun's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon score - Tomas Verner used it, but his program wasn't that great. It's a truly great score with lots of dynamic and varied musical motifs that could be easily configured into a good program. I don't know why more skaters don't use it.
Elliot Goldenthal's Frida score - All I remember is this one female skater I really did not care for using it. Great and flavorful score, although there may be too much vocals on it to make it easily adaptable to skating (if only that would stop Tango De Roxanne, though).
Michael Giacchino's score for the film Up - A sometimes lighthearted, often whimsical and sometimes poignant score to the great Pixar film. Its lack of use in skating may be due to the fact that when the film came out, Disney had a moratorium on merchandising the film (because some of the subject matter in the film were so serious/sad), this meant there was no physical release of the film's music until 2011. This hampered the spread of the film's score. On the other hand, that didn't stop the score from winning an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and a Grammy, one of the very few movie scores to ever do so. Figure skaters just have awful taste.
A. R. Rahman's score to Slumdog Millionaire - I love this soundtrack, and I think it would be great for skating... except almost every piece on it has vocals. So it's only going to be used in ice dancing until the rule change kicks in.
Other recent best score winners that aren't used much:
Gustavo Santaolalla's score to Brokeback Mountain - No surprise there. Considering that figure skating is a sport with fewer openly gay high level competitors in its history than rugby, skaters are going to stay the heck away from Brokeback Mountain.
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' score to The Social Network - I can see why. Most of the pieces in the score are minimalistic mood pieces that wouldn't lend themselves to a skating program.
And I don't ever recall skaters using the Oscar-winning scores to Babel, Atonement, et al. In fact, I reckon the majority of the best score winners have been completely ignored by top skaters.
yes but the movie that wins best picture gets used quite a bit.
SB, Delobel/Schoenfelder also used Frida (in 2004/05). I believe Hurtado/Diaz and McLaughlin/Brubaker used Slumdog Millionaire.
I'd love to see someone tackle the Oscar and Lucinda score (among others)
Thanks for the music listings, SB!
My research has verified that The Red Violin won the Oscar (1999), and it was by an opera composer John Corigliano, who wrote the The Ghosts of Versailles, one of the few modern operas that has gotten a good reception by audiences and critics. Kwan skated to it, during the exciting days when Lori Nichol explored unusual and innovative music for her programs.
This week I've been listening to an old Miklos Rozsa score, for Ivanhoe. One of my favorites of his, up there with El Cid. I'm not sure either of them won an Oscar, but they are full of possibilities for skating: adventure in fast tempo, slower, more sustained love theme melody, transitional measures. For both these scores, Rozsa studied music of the time (eleventh through twelfth century, I think) and incorporated authentic motifs. I wouldn't mind seeing someone skate to either of them, and though they each have the accessibility of a romantic sound track, both also possess the virtue of originality at this point, being about fifty years old.
Last edited by Olympia; 08-21-2012 at 12:37 AM.
I think anything by John Williams is good (Schindler's List has been used a bit over the years... Witt, Slutskaya, Wylie... S/S...) I can't remember, is anyone skating to War Horse this year? Has anyone skated to The Terminal? I love the quirkiness of the music...
Elena Ilinikh-Nikita Katsalapov Schindler's List-fantasticOriginally Posted by Tonichelle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hf-xigLfTk
That's not true, either. I love the score to American Beauty (Thomas Newman being one of my favorite composers), but despite winning best pic in 1999, I can't even think of any skater who used the score for a program.
Did anybody use the score to The King's Speech? Just as well they didn't, that was a silly movie.
The scores to A Beautiful Mind, Million Dollar Baby, Crash and The Departed appear to be pretty much ignored by skaters. No Country for Old Men, of course, has no real composed score to speak of, and thus can't be used.
I don't think skaters and their choreographers pay that much attention to the Oscars, really. They'll take a real, unnatural and horrible shine to some films that have won the major Oscars (Chicago, anyone?), and abuse the soundtrack to films that found less favor with the academy with just as much gusto (The Matrix, Pirates of the Caribbean). Skaters and choreographers gravitate towards films with mass appeal, simple stories and unsubtle themes. Musicals are always a plus. The tastes of the Academy don't always fall in line.
And there are other routes to how skaters and choreographers will discover film scores. For instance, John Williams' score for Memoirs of a Geisha got nominated for an Oscar for best score, but failed to win it. The film itself was otherwise forgotten by critics and audiences alike. But once choreographer wunderkind Wade Robson used the piece "The Chairman's Waltz" from the score for a very memorable dance piece on the TV show So You Think You Can Dance, the music started popping up in skaters' programs all over.
Jeremy Abbott, dear!
Here, links are fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFj1FXhvgj0
Last edited by Blades of Passion; 08-21-2012 at 02:48 AM.
Not to mention, he used Life is Beautiful, which also won best score
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Is_Beautiful
West Side Story won for both best picture & best score & is a war horse, for sure, for skaters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Is_Beautiful
Someone has put up a very useful listing of winners & nominees for best scores & songs back to forever in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy...Original_Score
1980's
Out of Africa, Fame, Chariots of Fire, Yentl, the Last Emperor have all been used
1990's
Most of the winners have been used. except The Full Monty, Emma, & The English Patient.
Winners that are from animated series are used, but perhaps more by Juniors or in exhibitions.
Films that have controversial characters (Brokeback Mountain) or depressing stories (The English Patient) less so, I would expect?
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