Superman in Northampton, MANHATTA in Manhattan

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a 12-piece orchestra (2 of them, actually, one in Northampton MA and one in Portland OR) playing new scores for 6 Superman cartoons from the 40's. The bi-coastal events took place last night to cheering crowds in those cities, too far for me to get to both, but close enough to leap in a single bound for our hero. I wrote a score for BILLION DOLLAR LIMITED, and my friend Makia Matsumura, who was one of our piano trainees in Pordenone last year, did another. Met a third composer who came up from Florida, Jesse Hopkins, and we all enjoyed watching the superb projections of the cartoons accompanied by our scores, played by students from Amherst under the baton of Brazilian conductor Lanfranco Marcelletti, Jr.

The Arts and Leisure section of today's NY TImes (11/9) has an
article by Dave Kehr about the MANHATTA premiere this coming weekend.

I'll be playing for ORPHANS OF THE STORM at BAM Tues. at 7, and then heading back to the city for the 2 MANHATTA shows. My orchestral score will be played in the fine recording Peter Breiner did this spring; he'll be there too. Bruce Posner will talk about the process of digitally restoring the film and I will show a clip of the recording session, as well as improvise to other NY films.

And next Sunday is a repeat performance of HEARTS OF THE WORLD, which was very well received last week at MoMA.

Lots to do, so it's time to hit the hay!