Angels In America Soundtrack CD

Original score composed by Thomas Newman.
Personnel: Thomas Newman (piano); Susie Stevens Logan, Chris Ibenhard, Dwayne Condon, Sandra Montgomery, Sally Stevens, Elin Carlson, Bobbi Page (vocals); George Budd (whistling, synthesizer); George Doering (guitar, kantele, lute); Rick Cox, Bill Bernstein (guitar); Steve Tavaglione (violin, alto flute, clarinet, EWI); Oliver Schroer, Sid Page (violin); Steve Kujala (flute); Leslie Reed (oboe); John Beasley (piano); Michael Fisher (drums, bodhran, tambourine, timpani, chimes).
Audio Mixer: Tommy Vicari.
Recording information: Fox Newman Scoring Stage; Signet Sound Studios; Todd Scoring Stage.
Unknown Contributor Role: Michael Fisher.
Already associated with HBO for his award-winning Six Feet Under theme, the network tapped Thomas Newman to compose the music for Angels in America, its much-publicized, star-heavy adaptation of the Tony Kushner play. Totaling just over 70 minutes, the soundtrack weaves together pieces short and long, intimate and bold to help tell an elaborate story of AIDS in the '80s and angels in our world. It opens with "Threshold of Revelation," where snatches of vocal are drowned in the unsettling roar of a trumpet fanfare. Only a minute long, it nevertheless gets at what it might feel like -- amazing, scary, and beautiful all at once -- to be visited by an angel. Especially if you think it's just the pills talking, as one character in the film does. But as tense as "Threshold" and selections like the brooding "Ramble" or the bold, odd "Black Angel" are, Newman fills the film's main title with an irrepressible sense of hope. Its lilting melody is immediately addicting, its shimmering corners awash in sunlight. In fact, the entirety of Angels in America seems to shimmer, whether it's moving to the stirring strains of a choir ("The Infinite Descent") or getting a bit whimsical while suggesting the main theme's melody ("Pill Poppers"). Like the film itself, Newman's music finds ways to be not quite of this world, while at the same time grappling with very real issues and universal emotions. It's also incredibly literate and invariably classy, as you'd expect anything associated with something as big-time as Angels to be. As he did with the music for The Shawshank Redemption, Newman expertly plays these varying elements and moods off of one another without ever losing sight of the personal hope that seems to ultimately drive the characters. A lone violin fades in during "Quartet"; it's either mournful or insistent, depending on how tense you take the supporting piano chording to be. Whatever the emotions elicited by Newman's score, it's as audacious -- and successful -- as the film itself. ~ Johnny Loftus
The producers of HBO's adaptation of Tony Kushner's epic play ANGELS IN AMERICA showed wise judgment in calling on Thomas Newman to score the star-studded production. The award-winning composer--veteran of sagas such as THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, AMERICAN BEAUTY, and ROAD TO PERDITION--knows his way around the musical expression of human emotions. He writes stunningly eloquent music that demands attention, yet never overwhelms the accompanied images. Newman rises to the occasion and provides music that perfectly matches the scope of this monumental work. Many of the themes are rendered for orchestra and voices, and are essentially romantic in nature, as exemplified by "Angels in America (Main Title)," "Pill Poppers," and "Broom of Truth." However, he also utilizes unusual instruments, as well as electronic devices, to achieve some exotic textures and otherworldly effects as in "The Ramble," "Quartet," and "Mauve Antarctica." Much of the music is tinged with melancholy or conveys foreboding and desolation, but even at its grimmest or eeriest, there always seems to be a hovering sense of hope. The soundtrack also includes recordings of Duke Ellington's "Solitude," "A Closer Walk with Thee" performed by George Lewis and His Ragtime Band, and the upliftin