Sarah Parish Various Photoshoots

Artist's Choice: Sarah McLachlan Review by William Tilland
For the most part, musicians are not terribly articulate about their musical likes and dislikes. After all, that's not how they make a living. However, good musicians are almost without exception attracted to musical excellence in some form or another, and the more eclectic their own creative efforts, the wider the net they are likely to cast as listeners. Sarah McLachlan's typical comments about the music she has selected for this Artist's Choice CD don't get much beyond "simple," "beautiful," and "heartbreaking" – but within these vague boundaries, she offers up everyone from Cat Stevens and R.E.M. to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Willie Nelson, and Clannad. It's not always a terribly cohesive program; the stylistic leap from Ali Khan to Emmylou Harris, for example, may represent an aesthetic challenge for some listeners.

omposer Sarah Schachner has stepped away from scoring “Modern Warfare II” citing “challenges in the working dynamic with the game’s audio director.”The game’s director of sound design is Stephen Miller, though Schachner didn’t name him or anyone specific in her post. “Over the past couple of months the working dynamic with the audio director has become increasingly challenging and I don’t see any path forward,” she wrote.

Parish Hall is the 1970 eponymous album by this Bay Area blues rock trio. It ended up being their only album, originally released on Fantasy Records. This is taken from the 2001 remaster, reissued by Alcinous Ltd.

This summer has been a huge season for theatrical releases, but Prey, one of the biggest streaming releases of the year, just stalked its way onto Hulu. The Predator prequel has been praised by both critics and fans alike for its back-to-basics approach, tense action sequences, and emotional storytelling. However, arguably one of the best parts of this new installment is the musical score by Sarah Schachner.Sarah Schachner is an American composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist based in Los Angeles. Recent credits include: PREY (20th Century / Disney), Assassin's Creed Valhalla (2020), Call of Duty Modern Warfare (2019), Anthem (2019), Assassin’s Creed Origins (2017), Chef’s Table (Netflix), NASA Jet Propulsion Lab Mission Control Music Project, NASA Cassini Finale Music Project.

Verglichen mit Schuberts Winterreise ist Schumanns Liederzyklus Frauenliebe und -leben kurz. Und dennoch umfasst er – so will es der Titel, so ist sein Inhalt – ein ganzes Leben: das Leben einer Frau, wie das 19. Jahrhundert es sah. Es galt als abgeschlossen, wenn sie das Unglück hatte, früh Witwe zu werden.Schumanns Zyklus endet mit dem Tod des Ehemanns, ein Verlust, der gewöhnlich das Verschwinden der Ehegattin aus der Gesellschaft bedeutete. Ihr Leben danach war nicht der Rede wert: Kindererziehung und einsame Abende, Kirchgang und Trauerkleidung, sofern sich nicht ein bedürftiger Witwer fand, der eine Stiefmutter für seine Kinder benötigte…

Imagine: It’s sometime in the back half of the 19th century, America. You’re sitting in the parlor of your mansion, or in the only room of your shack; things are dusty and smell like sweat and hair, no matter how wealthy you may be. You don’t own a phonograph, and you don’t know who Tony Hawk is, but you have an inkling of how good the word “shred” is going to feel when it enters the local slang. Suddenly, a tall, elegant figure with beautifully maintained fingernails emerges from some corner of the room, carrying a guitar. He says in a soft voice, “I have a transmission for you, from the coming few centuries. Would you like to hear it? I figured you wouldn’t have a dongle, so I brought my guitar.”