Being a double music major/active theater performer here at Northern State University, I have a passion for good music. I don’t mean the kind of stuff that you hear on radio or walking around in the supermarket. I mean the kind of music that takes you on a journey, the kind that tells a story, that moves you by the end. That kind of music, I believe, is best represented by the musical theater and film score genres. Now, these are two genres that aren’t exactly popular, especially in this part of the country, far from the New York origins of musical theater and the Los Angeles roots of film scoring. Adding to that both genres are incredibly diverse. There are dozens of composers currently working in Hollywood, often times with over one hundred scores to their name and with their own style of music. There are just as many composers of musical theater, and while each has only a handful of musicals to their name (if they are lucky) there are often times multiple productions and casts of a single musical with each production bringing a unique sound and interpretation to the music. It can be a daunting task for someone who has just recently taken an interest in these genres to sift through all that is available to them. And with the internet bringing nearly all of these recordings to the listener at the touch of a button, it can become an even greater challenge to figure out which albums are right for you. That is why I have created The Orchestral Standard, a weekly review article in which I review a film score or musical - to share my passion and thoughts about the genres and to recommend to you which album you should get, if any, for a given film or musical.

Each week I will focus on a film or musical, first telling you about the history of the project, how it came to be, where the creators where at the time they made it, and the impact of the project as a whole to the creator’s body of work. Next I will talk about the content of the music itself. This can include track-by-track analysis of the score, different things to listen for in the music and wether or not the music works for me or not. For musicals I will discuss the performance of the different actors in each role, compare and contrast inflections and emotions and ultimately uncover the strengths and weaknesses of each cast. Finally I will give my final thoughts, tell you which album or albums to get, and give each album a rating which will determine wether or not each album meets the “Orchestral Standard.”

I give ratings on both a one-star to five-star scale, using half stars, and on a recommend or not recommend rating. This way I can give how I feel about the overall quality of a work and if I feel you should own the work or not. This will especially come in handy in cases where there are very many albums available for a work that has merit, but it would be unreasonable or unnecessary to own that many albums of one thing. Albums I recommend you own will be added to the “Perfect Collection,” a running list of albums which contains the best possible representations of work for a musical or film. Each recommended album in the “Perfect Collection” meets the “Orchestral Standard,” the made-up honor which these reviews are named after which means that they are musically and narratively satisfying.

Each installment of The Orchestral Standard will be a part of a series. A series will focus on a single composer, movie series or theme, usually leading up to a new release. This way the order in which I go through albums will be much more organized and I can cover works from a variety of time periods and styles over just a few weeks without it being random. The first series I will cover will be a composer series on the Academy and Tony award winning composer Alan Menken.

For many readers of the Odyssey, this man wrote the soundtrack of our childhood. With films/musicals like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Newsies and Aladdin, this composer is an excellent starting point as he has written both excellent award winning musicals and film scores. We will begin with his first musical collaboration with Howard Ashman, “Little Shop of Horrors” and going through every musical and score up until his latest song score in August with “Sausage Party.” I hope you’ll enjoy this look back through the works of this critically acclaimed and popular composer and I hope you’ll stick with me each week and listen along as we create the “Perfect Collection” of musicals and film scores in the Orchestral Standard.

Here is the schedule of reviews for the Alan Menken Composer Series:

6/3 - Little Shop of Horrors

6/10 - The Little Mermaid

6/17 - Beauty and the Beast

6/24 - Weird Romance

7/1 - Newsies

7/8 - Aladdin

7/15 - A Christmas Carol

7/22 - Pocahontas

7/29 - The Hunchback of Notre Dame

8/5 - Hercules

8/12 - King David

8/19 - Home on the Range

8/26 - The Shaggy Dog

9/2 - Enchanted

9/9 - Tangled

9/16 - Sister Act

9/23 - Leap of Faith

9/30 - Mirror Mirror

10/7 - Galavant Season 1

10/14 - Galavant Season 2

10/21 - Sausage Party