Calling All Dawns ~ Christopher Tin

[spt1224]

I'm sure many people here are great fans of the Civilization IV segment at Video Games Live, which largely features Baba Yetu, a song composed by Christopher Tin.

His debut album, entitled Calling All Dawns, is due to come out this Thursday, October 1st. Not only does the album start off with an updated version of Baba Yetu, it follows with another of my favorites, Mado Karu Mieru (which I mentioned previously in this thread (http://videogameslive.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14428)).

Calling All Dawns consists of twelve songs in twelve different languages. It is a narrative told in three parts--day, night, and dawn--about life, death and rebirth. Each song flows seamlessly into the next, and the album ends on the same chord that it opens with--thereby representing the fluid, cyclical nature of the universe. It carries a strong message of unity: that regardless of race, culture and religious belief, we are all connected through our common human experience.

Based on the samples on his website (http://www.christophertin.com/), I think the album fulfills its intended purpose nicely. If you like what you hear, please support an excellent composer and purchase a copy, or several. Personally, I think it will be worth every penny. (My girlfriend and I pre-purchased two copies as soon as we heard about it.)

You have one day or so to join the preorder queue and get your copy signed and numbered, plus a download link to a digital version to listen to while your copy is in transit... so don't wait :)

The album will also be available for digital download from his site for $10, and on iTunes later for the same price.

Sorry I didn't post this sooner... I've been meaning to make a post for weeks now, but as usual I kept putting it off.

For more information, you may want to check out the several relevant threads posted on this forum (http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=208).

Here's the tracklist:


Part I: Day
01. Baba Yetu (Swahili)
02. Mado Kara Mieru (Japanese)
03. Dao Zai Fan Ye (Mandarin)
04. Se E Pra Vir Que Venha (Portuguese)
05. Rassemblons-Nous (French)

Part II: Night
06. Lux Aeterna (Latin)
07. Caoineadh (Irish)
08. Hymn Do Trojcy Swietej (Polish)

Part III: Dawn
09. Hayom Kadosh (Hebrew)
10. Hamsafar (Farsi)
11. Sukla-Krsne (Sanskrit)
12. Kia Hora Te Marino (Maori)


Calling All Dawns was recorded at the world-famous Abbey Road Studios with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Performers on the album include the Grammy-winning Soweto Gospel Choir, Grammy-nominated opera singer Frederica von Stade, Portuguese fado sensation Dulce Pontes, early-music quartet Anonymous 4, and Iranian singer Sussan Deyhim, among many others. Calling All Dawns was recorded and mixed by three-time Grammy-winning engineer John Kurlander.

[spt1224]

Also, be sure to check out this interview (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25344) with Christopher released today by Gamasutra. In the interview, he discusses not only his new album, but also the Civilization series and Video Games Live.

Your music for Civilization IV has been a fixture of the Video Games Live concert series program. What has been your experience working with the event organizers?

Well, Tommy and Jack are great. To me, they’re living the life right now. Having gotten to know them over the years, they have cultivated a great sense of community among game composers.

For example, Tommy has an annual summer barbecue where he invites everyone in the Game Audio Network Guild to his house. I can’t think of another industry where one of the top composers says, “Hey guys, everyone come over and hang out at my place!” It doesn’t matter if you’re an A-list composer, an assistant or an intern, you can come over, play videogames and hang out.

Has participating in the Video Games Live concert series directly contributed to the design or realization of your concept for Calling All Dawns?

I think that any time you're able to take a piece of music out of the context of a game and still have it stand on its own it's a validation that you've written a good piece of music. In a sense, the success I've had with my music being featured in Video Games Live (and the hundreds of other live performances of my music) gave me the motivation to create an entire album of music that would stand on its own, apart from any visuals.

On your blog you mentioned an audio/video experiment that took place at a recent performance of your Civilization IV medley at Video Games Live in Kalamazoo, Michigan. You had attended the concert virtually from your home in California and participated in a Q&A session by being projected on a monitor at the venue. How did the experiment turn out?

It was a great experience! And kudos to the VGL guys for trying to integrate this technology into the concert experience. In this day and age, why can't we do more of this stuff?

I'm relatively young, but I still remember a day when the idea of a 'video phone' was some sort of distant, newfangled technology. Nowadays we can beam anyone's voice and image anywhere in the world (and for FREE, on top of it), so why not have more remote participation events where composers 'virtually' attend concerts of their music? If any orchestra or choir out there wants me to do such a similar broadcast, even if it's just to say 'hi' during a rehearsal or do a Q&A, I'd be ready and willing.

Do you find it rewarding as a musician to interact directly with listeners and hear their feedback, for instance during the Video Games Live series' post-concert meet-and-greets?

Absolutely! I love meeting game music fans in person, and especially getting emails from people who are fans of my music (I usually write back). I'm very 'public' in my composition process. When I have the time, I love to workshop works-in-progress with a trusted circle of friends for feedback. The act of playing your works for people is a very revealing part of the creative process; you can no longer avoid those weak points that maybe you've been turning a blind eye to, but instead, are forced to confront them.

With a lot of these songs, I tried to capture a cultural understanding of the language that the song is based on. There is a tendency to rely on cliches in striving for ethnic legitimacy. Whenever possible, I try to go a step beyond and find a deeper cultural raison d’etre.

This is where the understanding of literature and poetry comes into play. As it is, each of these songs draws from texts about life, death and rebirth. You have the requiem mass in Latin, you have excerpts from the Bhagavad Gita, an excerpt from the Torah, a Catholic hymn, a Japanese haiku, Māori proverbs, Persian poetry by Omar Khayyam. It’s not just sacred material, but also secular. 2009 has been spent recording soloists like the Soweto Gospel Choir performing "Baba Yetu," various singers in Japan, and Anonymous 4 in New York. The Portuguese Fado singer Dulce Pontes also sings a song for me, as does Iranian singer Sussan Deyhim and the legendary mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade.

[Myrph]

That sounds brilliant! I'd love to preorder one, especially if they're being signed and numbered... It just sucks that I have no money right now as its all been spent on Uni preparations, I've no idea when my student loan comes through and dubious as to whether any other money will come through for me...

Oh well, maybe I'll download the album once I've got some cash in my bank account...

[spt1224]

It is indeed every bit as excellent as I expected it to be... We just got our copies in the mail today (376 & 377 out of 1100 in the presale). They actually ran out of CDs and had to wait for another batch to arrive before sending out the rest.

9/10... Highly Recommended :)

And don't worry if you can't afford it right now... the samples are actually about 70% of the full songs... but it flows together so nicely when you have the whole thing :D

I actually like every song, even the operatic one. If I had to pick a favorite new song (meaning, aside from Baba Yetu and Mado Kara Mieru), it would have to be Sukla-Krsne... just because it reminds me of Trailer music, which is my favorite genre of music. Really, the whole Dawn act (the last 4 songs) is a 10-minute rush of euphoria :)

[Terraguy]

I actually like every song, even the operatic one. If I had to pick a favorite new song (meaning, aside from Baba Yetu and Mado Kara Mieru), it would have to be Sukla-Krsne... just because it reminds me of Trailer music, which is my favorite genre of music. Really, the whole Dawn act (the last 4 songs) is a 10-minute rush of euphoria :)

Now I'm curious. I love trailer music, so this has definitely shot up my "must evaluate" list.

[spt1224]

Mado Kara Mieru was on Corner Stone Cues - Eton Path, which is a publicly-released trailer album. (Christopher also did several other really good songs on Corner Stone Cues' Air Lyndhurst.) It's mainly the build at the end of Sukla-Krsne that makes it sound like a trailer music cue. Apart from those two songs, I wouldn't say it sounds like trailer music, per se... it's all just really good orchestral music loosely themed around Baba Yetu :)

Oh, I forgot to mention... the Haka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haka) in the last song, Kia Hora Te Marino, was a really nice touch. And I really enjoyed the updated versions of Baba Yetu and Mado Kara Mieru.

Also, putting all the lyrics in the booklet was a really nice touch that I wish more composers would take the effort to do.