Robert Louis ‘Bob’ Fosse (June 23, 1927 – September 23, 1987)

Susan’s thoughts on Michael Jackson have got me thinking about 20th century dance and choreography, and it hasn’t taken long for my thoughts in this line to land upon Robert Louis Fosse, a/k/a Bob Fosse, a man whose dance style: sexual, stylized, cynical, exciting, has had and continues to have an incalculable influence on the worlds of dance, of music, and of pop-culture generally.

Fosse, famed as a director as well as a choreographer, … Continue Reading

The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant)

There are a lot of people that can’t wait for the new upcoming Doctor Who series which is believed to be aired in about a month on August 25. In the first new upcoming episode it also seems like that the Daleks are gonna cause more trouble again since the title of the first new episode is revealed and called ‘Asylum of the Daleks‘.

As a great Doctor Who & Torchwood fan myself i came across a … Continue Reading

Discover the influence that famous movie composers had on cinematic history that you may not have known about. Find out more about the composers who wrote the music for your favorite movies.

A good movie theme brings back memories of your first time watching the film and gives warm fuzzy nostalgia feelings. A great movie soundtrack is a story unto itself and can be the saving grace of a mediocre film. It helps a great film transcend to being a classic.

But what about those tireless composers working behind … Continue Reading

Les Misarables

Hollywood’s take on the long-running Broadway musical Les Miserables opened in U.S. movie theatres in the U.S. on Christmas Day 2012. It stars Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean, Russell Crowe as Inspector Javert, Anne Hathaway as Fantine, and Amanda Seyfried as Cosette.

This opening has us thinking about the history of the production, and about the phenomenally successful collaboration behind it all, that of Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boubil.

Music while reading this article

Les Miserables (Musical London Cast) At the End of the … Continue Reading

Ludwig Minkus (1826 - 1917)

Some beautiful music is composed for ballet. Oddly, as Eliza Gaynor Minden writes in her book The Ballet Companion, “ballet music” was once a pejorative term. The implication, in the minds of some, was that the composer wasn’t good enough to write music that could stand on its own as a work of art, so he had to settle for something that the real artists could choreograph for and dance to!

Yet surely composers such as Léo Délibes, … Continue Reading

Ken Russell in 2008

English movie director Ken Russell died on November 27th. We at justsheetmusic.com mourn his passing, and we gaze in retrospective admiration at his work.

Russell made a specialty out of directing movies about great composers. Elgar (1962) was his first in this line; a docudrama long before that term was invented, dramatizing the life of England’s own Edward Elgar. The BBC’s website says that this was “one of the most popular films of its kind ever … Continue Reading