http://www.alexanderrannie.com Alexander Rannie Sat, 21 May 2011 07:22:23 +0000 http://www.alexanderrannie.com en http://www.alexanderrannie.com/Monster-Safari http://www.alexanderrannie.com/following/alexanderrannie.com/Monster-Safari Sat, 21 May 2011 07:22:23 +0000 Alexander Rannie 1465413 From the brilliant and twisted imagination of Screen Novelties comes the stop-motion animated short Monster Safari. Underscoring the madness is original music by Alexander Rannie. Check out the latest from Screen Novelties here http://www.alexanderrannie.com/Dueling-Harps http://www.alexanderrannie.com/following/alexanderrannie.com/Dueling-Harps Sat, 21 May 2011 06:42:27 +0000 Alexander Rannie 1467691 Performance artists Ann Magnuson and Adam Dugas duke it out in a battle of song and wit, supported soley by their seconds, harpists Mia Theodoratus and Alexander Rannie. There will be blood...and puppets! Los Angeles Times October 17, 2008 'Dueling Harps' at REDCAT mixes strings, vocals The quartet's unconventional cabaret show includes classic and contemporary music, plus puppetry. By Victoria Looseleaf Special to The Times There's nothing like a little harp music to soothe jangled nerves. Popular at weddings, funerals and not a few brises, the age-old instrument, with its sensual curves and ethereal-sounding glissandi, not only has an aristocratic air but also seems an anachronism in today's techno-obsessed world. That image, however, gets a makeover with the, shall we say, unconventional cabaret act known as "Dueling Harps." Starring chanteuse, actor and performance art diva Ann Magnuson, singer Adam Dugas and harpists Mia Theodoratus and Alexander Rannie, it will arrive at REDCAT tonight for two performances. "I always found the harp to be Goth — haunting but also romantic," says the porcelain-skinned, redheaded Magnuson, an erstwhile fixture of New York's downtown art scene and an L.A. resident since 1987. "I was such an aficionado of horror films as a child, I find vampire imagery romantic. But after playing in a variety of bands, it's nice to strip everything down and keep it simple with the harp, which has a dark elegance and provides a beautiful soundtrack to the time-tripping brand of surrealism I enjoy wallowing in." Magnuson's numerous film credits include playing opposite David Bowie in the cult '80s vampire movie "The Hunger," and she has performed with such bands as the psycho-psychedelic Bongwater, for which she was lead singer and lyricist, and the heavy metal group Vulcan Death Grip. She's also recorded solo CDs, including one from 2006 called "Pretty Songs & Ugly Stories." But the idea of combining vocals and harp was actually Dugas'. A Brooklyn resident, Dugas also acts, writes, and produces and directs commercials, music videos and offbeat live shows. He began performing with Theodoratus several years ago when he was looking for an accompanist to perform with him in Shanghai. "The producer could only afford to fly me with one musician," recalls Dugas, whose friendship with Magnuson dates to the mid-'90s, when they were neighbors in L.A., "so I figured I should bring the most unique instrumentalist I could find. That was Mia, who could play Gnarls Barkley and Donna Summer on the harp. We were such a success that we continued to generate more repertory." As the rep grew, so did the act. After seeing the duo in New York, Magnuson mentioned to Dugas that she knew a harpist too, and "Dueling Harps" was born. Last year, the foursome appeared at Hollywood's Steve Allen Theater, but their show has been revamped for REDCAT to include a bit of Halloween tomfoolery: Beware of ghoulish puppetry (courtesy of puppeteer Robin Walsh), the splattering of blood and a Halloween medley that veers from "Bela Lugosi's Dead" to the theme from "Rosemary's Baby." And true to the act's title, the harpists open with Flatt and Scruggs' "Dueling Banjos" (famous from the film "Deliverance"), juxtaposing it with Handel's "Sarabande." They'll also take solo turns, with Theodoratus strumming some Frank Zappa and Rannie tackling "Follets," an arpeggio-laden harp classic by Alphonse Hasselmans. Theodoratus, who earned a performance degree from California Institute of the Arts, also lives in Brooklyn, where, she says, she once had to carry her harp down six flights of stairs because the elevator was broken. She likens the show to a 1960s variety act and says that she does her own arrangements: "It's like taking pop music and treating it like a classical aria and vice versa. It's really fun to flip things around." L.A.-based Rannie agrees, adding, "The thing I like about the show is the harp harks back to the tradition of a traveling troubadour. It's about storytelling, whether it's a song or spoken word, and some of the songs are humorous and some are poignant. In the end, you've really experienced something." Indeed, Magnuson and Dugas' disparate set list includes Irving Berlin's "Anything You Can Do," Harry Nilsson's "Everybody's Talkin' " and tunes by Henry Purcell and Jefferson Airplane -- plus a dollop of kulning, or Scandinavian cow calling. Magnuson, who will be seen as a witch in an upcoming episode of the CW show "Valentine," calls "Dueling Harps" unlike any show she's done in a cabaret setting, where chatter and clatter often drown out a performance. "This kind of more formal theater is a bit disconcerting," she says, "because everyone's sitting there really listening to you. But in the end, an audience is an audience, and I always try to follow my film professor's first commandment: 'Thou shalt not bore.' We can only hope we don't break that commandment." Copyright © 2008 Los Angeles Times http://www.alexanderrannie.com/LACO-Silent-Film-Gala http://www.alexanderrannie.com/following/alexanderrannie.com/LACO-Silent-Film-Gala Sat, 21 May 2011 06:35:52 +0000 Alexander Rannie 1465349 "The evening began with a classic Disney short, Trolley Troubles, which featured a brand-new score by Alexander Rannie, who led a quartet of musicians from the piano. It was during these five or six minutes that I really gained an appreciation for timing in music – Rannie cleverly scored every punchline and sound effect, and created a couple lovely recurring themes, and it was all executed perfectly. You’d think this score had been played countless times, but the performance on Sunday night was actually the world premiere!" — LACO blogger David Garcia <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/97735/1465349/61735924.jpg" width="500" height="325" width_o="500" height_o="325" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/97735/1465349/61735924_o.jpg" data-mid="7185909" border="0" align="left"/> Los Angeles Times May 20, 2011 'Trolley' will ring the bell at Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra's Silent Film Gala Alexander Rannie has written a new score for Disney's Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon short 'Trolley Troubles.' By Susan King, Los Angeles Times The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra's 22nd annual Silent Film Gala at UCLA's Royce Hall has lined up two classic Charlie Chaplin comedies from 1918 — "A Dog's Life" and "Shoulder Arms" — with Timothy Brock conducting Chaplin's original scores, which Brock restored and adapted. But Brock won't be conducting Sunday night's curtain-raiser, the 1927 Walt Disney silent Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon short "Trolley Troubles." Alexander Rannie has written a new score for the short and will conduct the world premiere at the piano, with Margaret Batjer on violin, Joshua Ranz on clarinet and Wade Culbreath on percussion. Rannie first worked with the orchestra in 2004, when Brock conducted his reconstruction of Carl Stalling's score for the 1928 Mickey Mouse cartoon "Plane Crazy," the first Mickey cartoon made and the third released. Last year, Brock conducted Rannie's score for "Alice's Wild West Show," one of the "Alice" live-action/animated comedy shorts Disney made between 1923 and 1927. Composing music for a silent cartoon, Rannie says, is more complicated than a silent live-action film. "You almost never have an intertitle card with a cartoon like you do in a live-action film," said Rannie, who has penned scores for cartoons such as "Ren & Stimpy" and live-action silent films such as the DVD collection "Georges Melies: First Wizard of Cinema." "Some of the early cartoons you would see a thought balloon come up next to the character but, for the most part, all the action is visual, and that music certainly has to support everything going on onscreen. With an out-of-control trolley, that's a lot of music." Rannie adds that Disney really knew the importance of music with his silent cartoons. "Walt Disney would go and tip the organist wherever they were premiering one of the silent cartoons to make sure they knew where the gags were and to spruce up the films," he said. Though Oswald cartoons are on DVD and YouTube, the rabbit certainly isn't as well known as his successor, Mickey Mouse, whom Disney introduced in 1928's "Steamboat Willie.". Disney created Oswald, who is basically a bunny version of Mickey, with Ub Iwerks in 1927 for Universal. Disney and his team made 26 black-and-white animated Oswald shorts that year. But they lost control of the rabbit by leaving after Universal refused to give them more money. The studio continued the Oswald shorts for the next decade under the direction of Walter Lantz, who later created Woody Woodpecker. The character finally came back to the Disney fold in 2006 as part of the deal between ABC/Disney and NBCUniversal that allowed sportscaster Al Michaels to leave ABC and ESPN and sign with NBC. "Trolley Troubles," which was the second Oswald short completed and the first released, finds the rabbit having a difficult time maneuvering a crowded trolley over hilly terrain, ultimately losing control in the process. Along the way, Oswald encounters an obstinate cow and a mischievous goat. "It's pretty frantic," Rannie said. Rannie watched "Trolley Troubles" countless times because "the film will dictate the tempo of the music … like when the trolley is coming down the hill and weaving back and forth." His score reflects the Jazz Age era in which "Trolley Troubles" was released. "There's also a very fast kind of waltz toward the beginning, what I call 'haughty hayseed' music when the cow comes along and a sort of Spanish flavor with the whole interplay with the goat when Oswald uses his tail," Rannie said. "There are syncopated rhythms throughout it." susan.king(at)latimes.com Copyright © 2011 Los Angeles Times Visit LACO here