Trouble a brewin’ in the orchestra pit of the Oscars? That’s what we’re hearing. And now a blogspot has popped up and is airing the internal grievance publicly.
The gist is composer Michael Giacchino (“Ratatouille,” “Star Trek,” “Up”) was offered the gig as conductor/composer for the Academy Award ceremony by Oscar show producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon, (formerly a position held by Bill Conti who did the job successfully for 21 years) but Giachhino is apparently what they call in the score industry a “hummer” – he can’t actually read or write music and this is causing some major issues. And Conti apparently didn’t know this before he hired the composer. In fact, he just found out according to this report.
“Yesterday’s rehearsal with the orchestra was not good. The orchestra was polite (they all have a lot of money riding on the continuing charade of Mr. Giacchino’s orchestral output), but afterwards were discussing the possibility that Mr. Giacchino’s conductor Tim Simonec would be needed to come in to add some ‘professional help.”
Our source is telling us this is a real actual problem happening in the here and now. The report continues.
“When Mr. Giacchino took the job the hope had been that most of the music would be pre-recorded and Mr. Giacchino would get a nod from the host like Mr. Conti had gotten and no one in the audience would be the wiser.
However, when there are five nominees and the conductor has to know the tempos and time signatures for all five themes and do it live, then a degree of competence is required. Especially in front of a billion or whatever people.”
So the rumor/word is now that Giacchino just might be replaced at the last minute. Seat of the pants Oscars? Will Simonec take over, period? Word is they’re doing their best to have everything fixed and pre-recorded, but some of the professional musicians are out and out amazed (and potentially outraged) that this is happening.