Saints of the Old City - Original Orchestral Score

I am composing the score to the upcoming film Saints of the Old City. I am bringing together 27 fabulous professional orchestral musicians. We have one chance to record this score with no rehearsal.

The Film

Exiled visionaries struggle to re-invoke the spirit of Utopia in the 21st century ruins of an American industrial city. The film delves into architecture, photographs, contemporary texts, and other primary sources of historical record. Context-altering installations, mythic characters, sculptural costumes, and densely layered animations create a rich visual language that gives voice to past histories and potential futures.

Motion Picture Score the old-fashioned way

In an era of film when orchestras have been replaced by sample libraries, even where an orchestra is used at all, here is an originally composed score recorded by a full orchestra. We're doing this movie score the old-fashioned way. It is a mysterious score of sonorous dark colors and rich brilliant timbres, reflecting and developing on the post-industrial landscape and temporal dissonance of the film.

The entire film has been made on a handshake and self-financed by the filmmaker, Greg Mahoney. It would have been financially impossible to hire an orchestra, but I am honored by my network of musician friends, who are giving of their talent to play for a single orchestral recording session. None of the musicians has even met Greg, but volunteered for the project because I asked them to.

How I'm going to do it

On the night of the recording session, the orchestra will meet for the first and last time. We will set up all the instruments and microphones. After tuning and a brief sound check, we will roll the recorder and begin reading the score. I will edit and mix the recordings myself, together with the other music of the film (created by me and others and recorded by me), foley, and sound design elements.

Shiki Group

A large part of the soundtrack will feature my improvising ensemble Shiki Group. My original collaboration with Greg stemmed from the video below, and our music began the discussion of us working with Greg on the score to Saints of the Old City. Our pianist Michael McNeill is coming in to town from Buffalo for the project. We will be holding a separate recording session to track the improvised elements of the soundtrack.

How I will use the money

The funds raised in this campaign will be used in two ways. First of all, to thank the musicians who have agreed to participate for free, a monetary honorarium will be given to each of them for their musical contribution. Secondly, the funds will be used to pay for the recording venue rental and instrument logistics (moving large percussion instruments.)

• 27 Musicians, 4 personnel @ $100 = $3100.00
• Recording Venue Rental $575.00
• Instrument Transport $100.00
• Fees to Kickstarter and Amazon Payments (est.) $377.50

• Total Expenses - $4152.50

Any funds raised beyond our goal will be divided between the musicians. 

Thank you for reading and being a part of this project.

Thanks! 

Gabriel Solomon