Lakeshore Records has digitally released the original series soundtrack for the PBS documentary series Asian Americans by two-time Daytime Emmy-winning composer Vivek Maddala. The music score reflects the series’ exploration of two centuries of immigration and civil rights experiences by Asian Americans in the U.S. The docuseries aired last month on PBS and is now available for streaming on PBS.org and the PBS Video app.
The soundtrack album includes 84 minutes of key moments and themes from the sweeping music score, taking listeners on a stimulating ride that traverses gritty 19th-Century American textures and elegant European romantic motifs; 20th-Century jazz, soul, and rock; and modern-day brooding electronica. Splashes of musical color come from places as varied as Japan, Philippines, Korea, China, and India–all threaded into a cohesive musical fabric that transcends temporal or geographic boundaries.
“The Asian Americans series is a significant work in terms of both the quality of the filmmaking and the importance of the subject matter. I feel incredibly honored to have been invited to compose the music score… to craft a melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic voice for this vital history. The series directors, producers, and editors proved to be superb collaborators in this regard,” said Maddala.
Review: Writer-Director Aaron Schimberg’s “A Different Man”
Imagine you could wake up one morning, stand at the mirror, and literally peel off any part of your looks you don't like — with only movie-star beauty remaining.
How would it change your life? How SHOULD it change your life?
That's a question – well, a launching point, really — for Edward, protagonist of Aaron Schimberg's fascinating, genre-bending, undeniably provocative and occasionally frustrating "A Different Man," featuring a stellar trio of Sebastian Stan, Adam Pearson and Renate Reinsve.
The very title is open to multiple interpretations. Who (and what) is "different"? The original Edward, who has neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder that causes bulging tumors on his face? Or the man he becomes when he's able to slip out of that skin? And is he "different" to others, or to himself?
When we meet Edward, a struggling actor in New York (Stan, in elaborate makeup), he's filming some sort of commercial. We soon learn it's an instructional video on how to behave around colleagues with deformities. But even there, the director stops him, offering changes. "Wouldn't want to scare anyone," he says.
On Edward's way home on the subway, people stare. Back at his small apartment building, he meets a young woman in the hallway, in the midst of moving to the flat next door. She winces visibly when she first sees him, as virtually everyone does.
But later, Ingrid (Reinsve) tries to make it up to him, coming over to chat. She is charming and forthright, and tells Edward she's a budding playwright.
Edward goes for a medical checkup and learns that one of his tumors is slowly progressing over the eye. But he's also told of an experimental trial he could join. With the possibility — maybe — of a cure.
So... Read More