MOSMA 2017 – Festival Summary

The first week of July 2017, from Wednesday 5th to Sunday 9th, the second edition of Festival Movie Score Malaga (MOSMA) was held in Malaga with the attendance of Gorka Oteiza (SoundTrackFest) who has written this long summary of what was lived there.

 

NOTE: Detailed information about the festival program can be found at the following link (read news) and full concerts information at the following link (read news).

 

DAY 1 - Concert at the Cathedral (Tuesday 7/4/2017)

Although the festival officially began on Wednesday 5th, on Tuesday 4th a pre-festival concert was organized at 8:30 pm at the Cathedral of Malaga, named “The sacred and the divine: Music in religious and spiritual cinema” which included music of epic and religious character in a privileged location for that purpose. Admission was free, after getting an invitation ticket from Albeniz Cinema the previous days, that attracted a big public, as it could be verified in the long queue and wait that was needed to access the venue.

 

The concert was performed by the Provincial Symphony Orchestra of Malaga, the University Choir and the Pre-university choir of Malaga, under the baton of Arturo Díez Boscovich, with Cristina Gallego Ruiz as soloist for the theme Angel by Sarah McLachlan.

 

As a summary it can be said that the concert was very good, although the acoustic characteristics of a space such as a cathedral, with its echoes and reverberations, make it difficult to achieve a homogeneous and uniform distribution of sound. But far from being an impediment, that was something extra in my opinion, since it gave an epic character to the music closer to its true spirit.

 

The performance of all the themes pieces was correct, except in the second part with the piece of ‘The Mission’ where the choirs performed poorly, both in tone and rhythm. Curiously, that piece was the only encore of the concert, the worst piece. But it was not so much the technical perfection but the experience what prevailed in this concert, and for that reason the overall balance was positive. It has to be noted that the structure of the cathedral did not allow a good view of the orchestra/choirs from many of the seats, despite the screens that had been installed for that purpose, which anyway, did not prevent enjoying the music and giving a good beginning to this new edition of MOSMA.

DAY 2 - Opening concert (Wednesday 7/5/2017)

It was already the first official day of the festival, which curiously did not have an opening press conference as it is usual in this type of events, giving way directly to the first meeting with composer Rupert Gregson-Williams.

 

Like the rest of the meetings with composers, it was held at the Rossini Hall of the Cervantes Theater, starting at 10:00 am, where television presenter Isabel Vazquez acted both as host and as English-Spanish translator. She did a wonderful job throughout all the conferences, since she knew very well the whole career and trajectory of each composer, asking interesting questions with a very solid script.

 

Rupert Gregson-Williams spoke about his experiences and highlighted his latest film: Wonder Woman, saying “I do not approach a female character or a masculine character musically in a different way, and curiously I started to write strong music at the beginning of the film, but the director asked me to change it and start soft and melodic, to grow the music along with the character, as she realizes of her abilities”.

 

After the conference, a very well organized signing session was held, where everyone queued up waiting for their turn; a singing session format that would be repeated after the rest of the festival’s conferences.

 

At 12:00 pm was Zacarias M. de la Riva‘s turn, in an interesting conference where he told how he was initially going to study telecom/computer engineering, but a tragic family accident made him change his perspective and turn to music, something that he had always liked and was deep inside him. Talking about his work on Tad Jones 2, that was going to be played that night in concert, he said: “At first I was called to score horror movies, since I made several films in that format that turned out well. Then I was fortunate to score the first part of Tad Jones and people liked it a lot, so I have been receiving calls for animated films, including the second part. I have jumped from terror genre to child animation genre! Strange change! Which is not bad, because if they keep calling me … means they like my work!”

 

And at night, at 8:30 pm, the moment of the opening concert of the festival arrived, called “Box Office Greatest Hits: Blockbusters in Film Music”, performed by the Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Arturo Díez Boscovich with the Ziryab Choir, and having Oscar Senen & Tim Williams as guest conductors.

 

I’d like to highlight in the first part of the concert the suite of Star Wars, composed especially for the festival by Arturo Díez Boscovich and based on the stories of “Heir to the Empire”, where you could taste all the flavor of Star Wars music but with the freshness of new ideas, especially in the central love theme of the main characters. A first part where the suite of Tad Jones 2 by Zacarias M. de la Riva could also be highlighted, which had adventures, fun, action, relaxation of tension and the theme of Tad Jones all in one long theme, with a clear homage to the music of Indiana Jones in some passages.

 

The music of Tyler Bates was the absolute protagonist of the second part of the concert, which had a mix of orchestra (conducted by Tim Williams) with typical rock group instruments like guitar, electric bass and drums, or some more atypical instruments like Guitarviol played by Tyler Bates, giving that way a special tone to the music. It has to be emphasized the hypnotic and captivating voice of Rafe Pearlman, that he was modifying and modulating electronically according to the themes to be performed, and he was the star of this second part, getting all the attention of the audience.

 

A great concert which ended at 10:40 pm, after two hours of music.

DAY 3 - TV music and outdoor concert (Thursday 7/6/2017)

The day began early, at 10:00 am, with a meeting at the Cervantes Theater with veteran composer David Shire, who did an extensive review of his entire career conducted by presenter Isabel Vazquez, who unfortunately left no space for Q&A at the end of the conference, from the audience that filled the room. Among many other things, David Shire recalled the anecdote of how Alan J Pakula wanted the music in the film “All The President’s Men – 1976” not to be intrusive, but at the same time it should remind people they were not watching a movie but a real story. According to Shire “curiously the Watergate scandal and the resignation of President Nixon is a story that seems to be very much in the news today with our current President of the United States … Who knows if it will be repeated …. And maybe I can score it!”.

 

At 5:30 pm, the MOSMA Café meeting took place in the Library area of the AC Hotel Malaga Palacio with Timothy Williams and Peter Gregson (attendance of the first one only), followed by the double session of concerts at night.

 

The first, called “Stranger Things and Mr. Robot in concert”, was held at 7:00 pm at the Echegaray Theatre, which unfortunately was half full (or half empty, depending on who’s looking). The concert started with composer Mac Quayle and his assistant Rendra Zawawi on keyboards, with Dave Allen on drums and Jacobo Garcia on guitar, playing very well the tense, nervous, disturbing and psychological music of the television series Mr Robot, while visual effects originated by the music were projected on a screen over the stage.

 

The second part, which began at 8:00 pm, was performed by the 3 Bit Band (with videogame music composer Javier Garcia – Gryzor87 on keyboards). The performance focused completely on the overrated music from the TV series Stranger Things, which was presented correctly by the band, although the interpretation of the themes in which the vocalist of the group participated was the weakest part, especially Toto’s “Africa” theme, that was sang out of tune. As an encore, a good version of Michael Jackson‘s Thriller was offered, that closed a good concert, slightly tarnished by the performance of the singer during the second half.

 

 

The second concert of the night began at 10 pm (“Gods and monsters, the music of Tyler Bates”), but this time it was celebrated in an open air venue, taking the music to the Eduardo Ocon Enclosure, which is located in a park near the promenade of Malaga. There Tyler Bates’ band, performed a rock version of his film music for the audience, and audience that filled the place occupying all the seats. Unfortunately the concert was shortened by the rain that had been threatening for hours, and that caused some problems due to the humidity affecting electronic instruments, as Tyler Bates said during the performance. A very interesting free concert, for all audiences, that added a point of color and variety to a program that was being already quite rich.

 

 

DAY 4 - David Shire recital and Jerry Goldsmith Awards gala (Friday 7/7/2017)

Once more the festival’s acts started early, with a meeting at 10:00 am at the Cervantes Theater with composer Mac Quayle, who talked about his beginnings in the rock band of the institute, to then continue playing in clubs. From there, he went to produce music and make arrangements of pop / rock songs in disco version, arriving later to film and TV scoring. On the TV series Mr. Robot he commented that “Sam Esmail (the director) has very clear ideas of what he wants on a musical level in the series, and we have talked a lot about it, about the sounds, the style and the atmosphere that the history has to carry on. Sam gives a lot of importance to the music and usually turns the volume up, putting it over the sound effects, which is good for me, since usually the music is covered by SFX, and this way my music has prominence (*laughs*)”.

 

After the signing session, at 12:00 pm was the meeting with video game composer Neal Acree, who described how attending to John Debney‘s recording session for Liar Liar in 1997 marked him, and it was then when he decided that he also could do “that thing of scoring“. He also commented that “the biggest difference of working for a movie or a video game is time, since a game has at least a year of preparation and music is part of the project since very early stage, while in a movie, I usually have about 4 weeks and arrive when the project is in the post-production phase”.

 

In the afternoon, at 5:30 pm, a meeting was held in the library area of the AC Hotel Malaga Palacio called “MOSMA Café: Presentation of the book, John Barry. From James Bond to Eternity”, a book by authors Luis Saavedra and Sergio Hardasmal (with the presence of this second), and in which SoundTrackFest has had the opportunity to participate by writing a short text with 15 other guest film music world experts. 

 

At night, at 7:00 pm, one of the best moments of the festival arrived, a piano recital called “David Shire at the Movies – MOSMA HONORED” performed by composer David Shire, who days before the festival turned 80 years old, and who was accompanied by the fabulous voice of the singer Sylvia Parejo. This concert was not in the initial program of the festival, and came to replace the concert that was canceled dedicated to the music of Jose Nieto, although after witnessing the content, format, and execution of the recital, it must be said that the audience could feel very well compensated with the change.

 

The concert was intimate, intense and very special, where both artists surprised the audience with an accomplice performance, magical and unique, as rarely has been seen. A recital that lasted a little less than 1 hour; brief, but a true wonder that will remain in the memory of all the attendees for a long time. And it is surprising how sometimes, the simplest things, are those that leave the biggest footprint in our memory.

 

With the joy and excitement of the previous concert still fresh, and after a short break, it was time at 9 pm for the gala of the XIIth Edition of the Jerry Goldsmith Awards at Echegaray Theatre, which anyone could attend buying a ticket of € 10 that gave access to the awards ceremony and a food and drink catering, which was well worth the price of the ticket. The list of nominees/winners can be read in the following article (read news), although it should be noted that the winner of the award for best composer of the year was the American H. Scott Salinas, who also won the award for the best Documentary Soundtrack. A successful format the one that was used for the gala of the Jerry Goldsmith Awards, making them popular and accessible to everybody and not only to the organization, guests and specialized press like last year.

 

DAY 5 - Legends concert (Saturday 7/8/2017)

Saturday was the big day of the festival, which to a certain extent could be considered almost a semi-closing day, since many of the guests and participants in the activities would leave on Sunday. So with no time to lose, the day was marked by two panels in the morning and three meetings in the afternoon, in addition to the great concert of the night.

 

At 10:00 am began the day with a conference by Trevor Jones at the Cervantes Theatre, which was followed by a signing session, and despite how early it was, the room was completely full (in part because it was Saturday, and this facilitated the attendance of the people who were working during week).

 

Hosted by Isabel Vazquez, the composer told how he had a difficult childhood in a South Africa where apartheid was a reality, and how he was given a saxophone that he did not stop playing for days until some family member or neighbor, tired of the “noise”, decided to make it disappear without saying anything. But it was late, the seed of music had been planted inside Trevor Jones, and it was only a matter of time before it began to bloom. Speaking of his passion for film music, the composer commented: “I gave some film composition courses a few years ago in Madrid and Barcelona; about 30 people, and I have been to Spain several times to various concerts and festivals. I have always been surprised by the interest that people in Spain have with film music. It’s something I have not seen anywhere else in the world!”.

 

Later at 12:00 pm it was the moment of Tyler Bates’ conference, where he spoke about his beginnings in music and his experience as guitarist of the American group Marilyn Manson, which has influenced him when it comes to composing film music.

 

After a lunch break, the activities continued at 5:30 pm at the AC Hotel Malaga Palacio with the presentation of the CD, “Quartet Records – Concert MOSMA 2016 – TRIBUTE TO MICHAEL KAMEN” with Jose Maria Benitez, talking about the planned CD release from the monographic concert offered in the first edition of MOSMA with the music of Michael Kamen. Followed and almost without pause, at 6:00 pm came the “MOSMA CAFE: Jerry Goldsmith Awards Winners” chat with H Scott Salinas and Carlos José Alvarez to finish the afternoon at 6:30 pm with the “MOSMA CAFE: International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA)” where various components of the IFMCA spoke about the state of film music, film music festivals and the world of film music critics in general. This chat had Ad de Nijs (SoundtrackPortal.com) and Gorka Oteiza (SoundTrackFest.com) as guests and as the next possible IFCMA members by the end of 2017.

 

And to finishing this long day came another great concert at night, at 8:00 pm at the Cervantes Theatre called “Legends: Great Masters in Film Music” and performed by Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra and the Choir Ziryab, with David Shire at the piano, and conducted by Arturo Díez Boscovich, with Trevor Jones, Deniz Cordell, and Oscar Senen as guest conductors throughout the concert.

 

The concert started with a section dedicated to the music of the best of 2016 directed with energy and precision by Arturo Diez Boscovich, supported by the strength and harmony of the Choir Ziryab in several of the parts. Then came two songs by Victor Reyes, but with special detail to the music of Red Lights, very soft and sensitive at the strings, with emotional and strong counterpoints provided by the brass section alternatively. This piece was followed by David Shire‘s music, with a fantastic Hello Mr. Dugan and a delightful seventies sound in Pelham 1.2.3, both brilliantly performed by the orchestra.

 

But the best was yet to come with Saturday Night Fever, where a totally loose Arturo, who was literally dancing on stage, pushed the orchestra to the limit in a crescendo that put the whole audience in motion with the disco rhythm of the piece, receiving a clamorous standing ovation at the end. There is only a word to describe this moment: Amazing!!

 

And when we thought that the concert had reached its highest point, the symphonic narration of Return to Oz arrived with Deniz Cordell directing the orchestra and actress Didi Conn, David Shire’s wife, acting while reading a story in several parts, which had with simultaneous translation on a small screen over the stage. With Didi’s voice marvelously surrounded by the music, and a performance that conveyed the emotion and intensity of words both in her movements and in her expression, we were soon virtually transported to the world of Oz. Almost half an hour of music and interpretation, which provided the most spectacular and original moment of the night, and that was another of the great moments of the festival, a moment to save and keep like a treasure in our memory.

 

And so, with the emotion still fresh, the intermission arrived past 9:40 pm. What could easily have been the end of the concert, both for duration and content, became a pause as at 10 pm began the second part. This second part began with the music of Trevor Jones conducted again by Arturo, in a suite of six movements of Dark Crystal, intense and very strong, that had the support of the choir and that had brief pauses between the movements. The Last Mohican came next, a music that we know very well since it turned out to be very popular and could be listened everywhere when it was released, so it was easy to spot that it was not very well performed by the strings, and especially by the concertmistress who really missed the tune. In the two final themes, Arturo gave the baton to Trevor Jones to conduct Notting Hill and Dark City, powerful and glorious with the reinforcement of the Zyriab Choir. The concert was over, but a big applause from the audience led to a final encore with part of the Dark Crystal suite, ending the evening almost at 11:00 pm.

 

A great concert, which gave us two wonderful moments with Saturday Night Fever and the original and fabulous symphonic narration of Return to Oz, that we will keep in our memories for a long time.

 

DAY 6 - Videogames concert (Sunday 7/9/2017)

And so the last official day of the festival arrived, which began at 11:30 am with a conference by Victor Reyes at the Cervantes Theatre, where the composer gave details of his career in Spain and how it is to work for foreign and Hollywood productions, spiced up with good humor and sympathy.

 

At 2:00 pm the traditional “brotherhood lunch” was held in the Bodega Bar El Pimpi where those fans who had bought a ticket (priced € 20), could talk in a relaxed atmosphere about how the festival was, together with people from the organization, guests, and composers, while waiters brought catering trays of food and drink. An interesting meeting place, which gave way to chats, photos, smiles, and anecdotes, that could have marked the end of MOSMA.

 

But the program was not finished yet, and in the afternoon at 5:00 pm, the meeting “MOSMA Café: Cinema and Video Games: A Transverse Language” with Jose Maria Villalobos was held at the AC Hotel Malaga Palacio that had an audiovisual projection to reinforce the contents.

 

Past 7:00 pm the last concert of MOSMA was held in the Echegaray Theater, “Insert Coin: Music in Video Games” performed by the Provincial Symphonic Orchestra of Malaga conducted by Arturo Diez Boscovich with Neal Acree as guest conductor in the second part and the voice of Julie Elven (original singer of some of the pieces). A concert that had a full house, and that sold out all the tickets days before, demonstrating the growing interest in video game music among people. With a first part dedicated to classic video games and another dedicated to the most modern video games, which included several pieces of Neal Acree conducted by himself, the concert was interesting and correct, closing the evening past 8:30 pm, after ending the announced program with no encores.

 

 

IN SUMMARY

And to finish this article let’s do a recap of the points that could have some improvement and the strengths of this second edition of MOSMA.

 

WEAK POINTS TO IMPROVE

Spanish composers. Having more music from Spanish composers during the festival has been missed. Of the 7 concerts held, there was only one suite by Zacarias M. de la Riva in the concert “Blockbusters”, two themes by Victor Reyes in the concert “Legends”, and a theme by David Garcia at the “Insert Coin” concert; quite scarce in my opinion for the number of concerts / themes that were played throughout the festival. And on the other side, we have the monographic concert of Jose Nieto that had to be canceled, although David Shire’s recital was something wonderful.

 

Language. First, in many of the concerts (if not all), explanations or presentations were given only in Spanish, leaving the foreign public wanting to know what was happening.

Second, the fact that the conferences with the guests are carried out in English and later translated into Spanish, causes the content to be repeated twice and losing a lot of time, making a 1-hour conference a half-hour effective conference. This has been especially noticed in the meetings with David Shire or Trevor Jones, where the time of the conference was finished and there was still much to talk about. If possible, a simultaneous translation system with headphones should be considered, in the style of what is done at other events/festivals (for example at the Krakow Festival).

 

Time for questions at conferences. Regarding the conferences, this lack of time that resulted from the translation didn’t leave space for Q&As from the public at the end, having to go directly to the signing sessions. The hostess should take this into account and keep at least 5-10 minutes at the end, so the audience could ask questions to their favorite composers.

 

Jerry Goldsmith Awards. The fact that in the nominations to the Jerry Goldsmith Awards names of famous and established composers appear like Justin Timberlake or composers that even have an Oscar like Atticus Ross, Trent Reznor or Gustavo Santaolalla, does not seem a good idea if what is wanted is to boost young or beginning composers.

As stated on the official website of the Jerry Goldsmith Awards: “Its aim has always been to recognize the work of musicians in the audiovisual sector (film, television, advertising or other areas), especially of those who, despite having a career, have not obtained a well-deserved recognition. And always with particular attention to young composers, novice or that are beginning to have experience.”

For this reason, if the spirit of the awards is to especially promote young composers or composers whose career has not yet taken off, making them compete with renowned composers and productions in which there is a lot of money invested does not seem fair (although this year, in the end, all awards have been granted to “humble” composers and not to “big stars”).

 

Advertising. There has been little publicity in the city about the festival during the days of its celebration. The airport, the bus terminal, or the train station had hardly any leaflets or some scattered posters, and many of the hotels in the city did not know that there was a film music festival in progress. Except in the surroundings of the Cervantes Theatre, the truth is that it was not clear that a film music festival was being held, a festival which had renowned foreign and national composers, amongst whom there was even an Oscar winner. Also the day after the main concert, on Saturday, up to 5 paper edition local/national newspapers were reviewed, and no references to the concert were found. This should be strengthened, giving more promotion and visibility to the festival, so it can reach more people.

 

STRONG POINTS

Audiovisual/photographic coverage and follow-up in social networks. The organization has made a great deployment of both photo and audiovisual resources to cover the festival events, recording all the conferences and all the concerts, as well as making photo reports that have been uploaded daily to social networks. This has resulted in a great coverage where both the people present at the festival and people who could not come, had a great vision of what was happening day by day. In addition, at the end of each day, one or several videos summarizing what happened were uploaded to the official channel, leaving a good audiovisual record of the events.

 

Recording of the concerts. The fact that all the concerts have been recorded makes it possible to publish them later, and I hope it will be something that can be done as soon as possible, since there are moments that should be immortalized and revived again and again, like the piano recital by David Shire and Sylvia Parejo (maybe it could be uploaded to the official YouTube channel of MOSMA?).

 

Signing sessions. It is a good idea to do the signing session at the end of each conference rather than centralizing all of them it in a single session at the end of the festival. This avoids problems for guests who have to leave before the last day and are not available for signing. In addition, this way it is ensured that whoever that wants a signature of one of the composers, goes to his conference (if there is interest for one thing, there should also be interest it for the other).

 

Jerry Goldsmith Awards Gala has been open to everyone this year, unlike last year, extending the celebration to anyone who wanted to be a part of it, and providing greater interaction of the composers with the public. A good idea to maintain and strengthen for future editions.

 

The proximity and closeness between fans and composers has been evident from the first day of the festival, which is always appreciated, and Sunday’s “brotherhood lunch”, where many people take the opportunity to say goodbye in a relaxed atmosphere, has been a good meeting place between organization, composers, press and festival participants.

 

The quantity and variety of concerts in the program and the dedication of monographic concerts to genres such as TV or video games, as well as the wonderful piano recital, have been great ideas and have resulted in a solid, varied and very enjoyable program.

 

In summary and as a final conclusion, it can be said that the second edition of MOSMA has been a success and has shown that in general the festival is consolidating on a good basis. MOSMA has been able to program quantity and quality, offering a wide variety of events ranging from symphonic concerts, to piano and solo recital, to video game concert, to small television concert, or to an outdoor rock soundtracks concert.

 

There have been musical options for almost everybody during one week (7 concerts in 6 days), complemented by a frantic free daily program of meetings, conferences and signing sessions, which did not give much break to the fans. A complete program, varied and with quality, that makes us look forward, wanting MOSMA 2018 to arrive soon.

 

 

Gorka Oteiza (SoundTrackFest)

 

 

NOTE: During the festival there was the opportunity to interview Mac Quayle, Victor Reyes, Trevor Jones and David Shire, in interviews that will be published soon and gradually in SoundTrackFest.