Category: Recording Session Notes

by Gary Powell

As an alumnus of the University of California at Irvine, Ted Kryczko, VP of A&R Catalog Development at Walt Disney Records, has rekindled a close relationship with the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at UC Irvine. As an distinguished alumnus, Ted offered a recent opportunity to the singers from its School of Performing Arts where they could be heard and critiqued by industry professionals. This studio session was a callback from an audition we held on the UC Irvine campus on November 17, 2007. In 2005, Ted and I offered a similar vocal workshop for singers at the “Buffalo Summer Institute in Media Writing and Production” in Buffalo, New York.

by Gary Powell

• SIXTEEN “Tween” Pop Songs Produced
• TEN Vocal Jazz Songs Recorded and Mixed
• ONE Jazz Choir Piece Recorded and Mixed
• EIGHT “Tween” Pop Song Vocals Produced and Mixed
• ONE Spanish Song Written and Produced
• ONE Italian Song Orchestrated and Produced
• THIRTY-FOUR Movie Cues Composed and Mixed
• EIGHT Musical Storybook Cues Composed and Mixed
• ONE Pop Song Written and Produced
• Four Folk Rock Songs Produced
• TWO Christmas Songs Produced and Mixed
• FIFTEEN Poetry Music Cues Scored and Produced

Just entering the film festival season is Glendalough Studio’s first feature film Guilty.

As my first entree into the feature film scoring role, I found the process of musically interpreting the work of filmmaker Gabe Folse and his team intriguing. In my experience of scoring dozens of corporate communications videos, I was seldom asked to render emotions musically, even had I found any emotions to render. Gabe Folse’s movie is rich with layers of visual, scripted and acted emotions. Clearly, this is film was born from living the compromises of a closely examined life. This landscape of compromise and redemption is the place where music lives most naturally for me.

by Gary Powell, Musical Arranger/Producer

The World Premier song “Baloo” is being released on Walt Disney Records this October 2, a mere 44 years after it was written. This very simple piano/vocal score was dated September 19, 1963 with the writing credits, “Lyrics by Bill Peat and Music by George Burns”. This song did not make the original cut for the “Jungle Book” movie. I’ll leave the full story about how and why to the Disney historians. As a musical arranger and producer, it was satisfying to bring this song to life in my studio.