Intrada Soundtrack Forum

I went to SAE's site and they listed Kilmanjaro by Alan Williams. Read up on it and it sounded intriguing. Typing in his name brought up a whole list of scores he has done. Looks like many Imax-type films. And some very interesting titles. Land of the Vikings, Island of the Sharks, Lion of the Americas, etc. What is his music like. They did not have too mant audio clips. Symphonic? I assume so.

If you want to hear samples of most of his work you should check out his official website, http://www.alanwilliams.com/index.htm. Personally I do not have any of his CD's but I have heard many good things about his work. I would be curious to hear comments from those of you who have his CD's and if you enjoy them.

Like his work a lot... he's pretty far from being the most original composer ever, but his scores usually have large orchestral stuff with amazing orchestration in the best hollywood's traditions...

eg Kilimanjaro uses classical orchestra, percussion and choir and sometimes sounds like the best James Horner ever wrote with some small short bits of slow Conan the barbarian type of score...

Island of Sharks - amazing slow music, large orchestrations, similar to some John Barry stuff, sometimes Medicine Man jungle music and a couple of cues similar a bit to action percussion stuff from WIlliams's Lost World: JP2

Princess and the Pea - AMAZING songs belonging to the best I have ever heard in an animated film and a heroic orchestral score... really great...

Taylor - smaller score for (probably) a TV or independent film... a bit jazzy feel with a trumpet solo, piano and harp... really love the opening in the tradition of Chinatown...

Amazon - his first IMAX score... large orchestra, choir and some ethnic instruments... have not heard this one for a while, but really love his IMAX stuff... I know a couple of Sam Cardon's who's also quite good, but Alan Williams is closer to my ears.... Amazon might be similar to some jungle parts of Medicine man again with sweeping variations of wonderful main theme...


These scores are probably my favorites... there is a couple more I really like such as Artic Circle (similar but better than Land of the Vikings), Mountain Lion (more traditional orchestral AW score), Santa and Pete has a couple of nice moments as well as Tiny Heroes....

From the compilation stuff I can really recommend his album called Sketches released in 2002 or so (as far as I remember unfortunally does not include Princess and the pea) and Television Suites which includes his smaller scores....



If you like sweeping scores and large orchestral harmonies and does not bother with screaming about some similarities I am 100% sure you won't be disappointed with his Sketches, Island of the Sharks, Amazon and Princess and the Pea... :)




check these on his website and let me know ;-)

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I was wondering it there might not have been a criss-crossing of answers.
In any case, I keep listening to Alan Williams because he does write nice music, whether "inspired by" or not-- in the former case, it's a nice expansion on existing themes & styles, a bit like Horner's The Spitfire Grill / Iris / To Gillian on her 37th Birthday; the music is so enjoyable I easily get past the "they, that's xxxx" thing.
I also like the few ("truly") original scores of his I have; not revolutionary, but very pleasant.