The November issue of Music Tech magazine contains an article about the live tour of Jeff Wayne’s War Of The Worlds, the seminal 1977 album that is as popular as ever some 30 years on. Sibelius played an important part in taking Jeff’s original handwritten scores and bringint them bang up to date. Speaking in the article, Jeff Wayne says:
“The first thing was to take the originals and create electronic versions of them. Sibelius has been invaluable for doing that both in the way it presents the score and in the functions that it has. It can take, in the case of The War of the Worlds, about a 100-minute score all in hand-written form and turn it into a beautiful-looking published score.”
Not only did Sibelius allow them to create beautiful new scores, but it also proved invaluable for creating the parts for each musician:
“And it’s not just good for scores – from each score you can create a part. With War of the Worlds, we’ve been the first to not tour with paper. We work with electronic readers that also have software which allows you to add things, whether it’s musician by musician or for me as the conductor. And Sibelius has the ability to go from its own software into the dedicated drivers that the readers require.”
Although Jeff prefers to compose away from the computer and orchestrate by hand, he finds that Sibelius allows him to create his finished parts quicker than ever:
“I was trained to orchestrate by hand, so I start sketching out my orchestrations then move into Sibelius. The inputting of all the parts and completing them is really speed by comparison.”
War Of The Worlds will be touring in 2010, so if you’d like to hear it live for yourself, book tickets now. And the November issue of Music Tech Magazine is on newstands now, or available for purchase online.
Marvin Lloyd
“We work with electronic readers […] Sibelius has the ability to go from its own software into the dedicated drivers that the readers require.”
Wow! Does anyone know what kind of e-reader they are using?
Daniel Spreadbury
I believe it was the Freehand MusicPad Pro, which is not the ideal device by any means (the screen is too small, and it’s very fussy about the resolution and other characteristics of the images it supports), but it’s pretty much the only commercial digital music stand product available.
Brendan Agnew
That’s right, but Jeff conducted from a Freehand Musicpad Maestro, which is the larger model, with a 19″ screen, able to display 2 pages at once. Just so you know, WOTW is not currently touring, but a large tour is being planned for next year. Keep an eye on http://www.thewaroftheworlds.com for more info.
Cheers
Brendan
Alex
Hi War of The World Fans
I have been researching the purchase of the entire War of The Worlds full orchestra score and, can not find it anywhere.
I am so keen to purchase this score for a performance by secondary orchestral students in the school I work with. We are all inspired by this incredible writing and are eager to project this for the new academic year ahead, beyond our current quarantining:-P
Can anybody help shed some light on where I purchase this score? JWPepper do not have the full orchestra score.
Thank you for your help here)