The 18th Angel

The score for Rysher Films The 18th Angel which starred Academy Award winner Maximilian Schell, Stanley Tucci (Big Night) & Rachael Leigh Cook (She's All That) was recorded by the 75 piece Northwest Sinfonia at Bastyr University Chapel in Seattle, Washington and mixed at Capitol Studios in Hollywood, California. In addition to the orchestra the score included two choirs.

The 18th Angel is a dark tale dealing with the eternal fight of good & evil and apocalyptic themes and was penned by David Seltzer who also wrote The Omen. The film was set in Tuscany, Umbria ,Rome & Boston in many of the castles and cathedrals of the area.

This project was especially fun for us because we had the chance to develop some thematic ideas early on that the editor was able to temp the movie with, so scoring the film felt very much like an integrated process of everyone building the film together.

We also had an opportunity to work with Joe Nimziki who served as a Creative Consultant on the film and with whom we had done many movie trailers (Stargate, Rob Roy, United Artists Logo) and arrangements of existing themes (Goldeneye) in the past but never a feature length project. We already had a great working relationship and history together and we were quite familiar with his musical tastes so it made the project into a real collaborative effort and allowed us to be free to explore many musical possibilities.

The orchestra and choirs were recorded in Jeff's hometown of Seattle in a large cathedral that really seemed to magnify the gothic vibe of the score. Jeff's family was able to come to some of the sessions (and sit in the pews!) and it was great to have them there and share the recording process with them.

Musically we had a chance to explore some dark brooding themes within the score and mix the gothic feel with both ethnic and modern percussion. Also, we added some Balkan inspired solo vocals over the traditional choir performed by our dear friend Aeone with whom we have also worked on several projects. ("Audio Poetry", the Lifetime movie Little Girls In Pretty Boxes, and movie trailers Lovers of the Arctic Circle, and Stigmata)

A significant personal outcome of this movie for us was having the pleasure of working with many wonderful artists who have become great friends, among these, Nicholas Dodd whose passionate conducting and orchestration added much to the scoring process, our recording and mixing engineer Robert Fernandez, additional orchestrator Larry Kenton and our music editor Laurie Higgins Tobias.