A stylish and fluid film score that combines bold orchestration, clever Vaudevillian comedy, and modern jazz figures

37 MP3 Songs
CLASSICAL: Orchestral, JAZZ: Jazz Fusion



Details:
ABOUT THE MUSIC

Vivek Maddala's intricately quirky, light-hearted score for "The Patsy" brings a pleasure to this film that it richly deserves. His use of constantly contrasting musical styles and instruments provides the viewer with a wonderful dramatic musical partner to the picture, sometimes playing along with the picture, other times teasing the viewer with what might be to come, and at other times playing almost opposite the picture. While Maddala often plays the drama of the picture, it's never too heavy and many times brings a lighter feeling to the scenes, which plays perfectly into the comedic line of the film. And just when you think things might be getting really dramatic, along comes the southern harmonica to put a smile on your face as the father of the family in the film does his best country-speak while married to his stuffy wife and bearing up in a 3-piece suit for most of the film.

On a musical level, the score harmonically and melodically is a deep, passionate work that always manages to avoid being dark, and exudes a playful, fun feeling without using any of the many musical or instrumental clichés that seem to dominate comedic film scoring. Maddala's deft and frequent use of twentieth century harmonic techniques is cleverly surrounded with playful, fun motifs that almost poke fun at the film, and indirectly the viewer, but not quite. The result is a wonderfully rich, entertaining, enjoyable score that adds an entirely new dramatic narrative element to the film and enhances it in a musical and dramatic way that viewers and fans of film scores will surely enjoy.

--Mark Northam
Publisher, Film Music Magazine

ABOUT THE COMPOSER

"Vivek's artistic vision is striking, cinematic, and beautiful..."
-Tom Karsch, Turner Classic Movies

Vivek Maddala is a national award-winning composer and multi-instrumental performer. His music blends melodic symphony writing with syncopated jazz idioms and ethnic textures--from 19th-Century Romanticism to Afro-Cuban, modern rock to French Impressionism--resulting in an emotive frenzy of percussion, brass, guitars, woodwinds, and strings.

In 2000, at the age of 26, Vivek won the first Grand Prize in the national Young Film Composers Competition and he was invited to study in the prestigious ASCAP Film Scoring program two years later. In July of 2002, Vivek was one of five composers featured in TCM's "Tribute to Great American Composers."

Vivek's film scoring background has been diverse: over the past five years, he has composed and orchestrated several acclaimed music scores for Turner Classic Movies, ranging from his 74-minute dramatic "Ace of Hearts" (2000) score, to his 90-minute symphonic score for the Greta Garbo film, "The Mysterious Lady" (2002); he composed the anthemic score for "The Flag" (2002), and the 80-minute orchestral score for the Marion Davies comedy, "The Patsy" (2004).

Independent films have become a primary medium for Vivek's music: he composed the Indian-influenced rock score for "Equation" (2002) and the jazz-infused romantic score for "Martha's Bakery" (2003). His collaboration with renowned saxophonist George Brooks produced a unique brand of Carnatic Indian music for "Gidoo's Cosmic Crisis" (2005). Most recently, Vivek completed scores for "Omar & Fiona" (2005), "Mother" (2005), and "Moon Chasing" (2005), all containing Vivek's signature modern orchestral sound. In addition, Vivek has contributed music to several music libraries and television commercials.

Formerly a pop/rock artist, Vivek has gradually shifted his musical focus to one steeped more in symphonic textures and '50s jazz, pitched to a darker, romantic world-view divorced from youth culture and self-congratulatory rock personae. When scoring music for film, Vivek goes beyond the primary functions of movie music--i.e., of supplementing and strengthening the visual and emotional components. He speaks with his own personal style, his own musical voice. He supplies a product that is not just background music, but that characterizes and frames the pictures--above all, serving the dramatic vision of the director. Elegant musical motifs, careful orchestration, and a wealth of instrumentation all combine to give Vivek's music a distinctive flavor that moves gracefully between tradition and innovation; with equal parts euphoria and introspection; frantic while elegant; drunken yet precise; and utterly human.