Academy Awards question

"Ed\ · Joined: 04 Aug 2007 Posts: 28

Does anyone know how the conductor's cues work when an award is announced?
The correct music begins within 2-3 seconds of the announcement of the
winner - does the conductor not know the winner until it's announced? I'm
trying to imagine how the players can get to the right music so quickly.

Archived from group: rec>arts>theatre>musicals

TD · Joined: 04 Aug 2007 Posts: 62

Ed(NY) wrote:
> Does anyone know how the conductor's cues work when an award is announced?
> The correct music begins within 2-3 seconds of the announcement of the
> winner - does the conductor not know the winner until it's announced? I'm
> trying to imagine how the players can get to the right music so quickly.
>
>

Every award category has a separate, specifically prepared 2-page
fold-out of music which contain cues, numbered 1 through 5, which
correspond to each nominee. As each award is about to be announced, the
musicians place this 2-page sheet on their stands. The second the winner
is announced the conductor raises his hand to signal with his fingers
which of the five cues is to be played, gives the downbeat and the music
begins.

TD

David Samuel Barr · Joined: 04 Aug 2007 Posts: 2

Ed(NY) wrote:
> Does anyone know how the conductor's cues work when an award is announced?
> The correct music begins within 2-3 seconds of the announcement of the
> winner - does the conductor not know the winner until it's announced? I'm
> trying to imagine how the players can get to the right music so quickly.

Award show conductors don't know the winners in advance.

The players have a single sheet of music for each award presentation,
containing a short musical excerpt for each of the nominees (sometimes
a taped pair of sheets if there are a lot of rapid notes in one or
more of the cues). Since each is only about 16 bars long, this is
pretty easy to manage for most single-staff instruments. It's a royal
pain for the copyists, though, since they have to either write out each
full part sheet juggling five different scores (try doing that for a
40-piece orchestra) or write out all the parts for each nominee cue and
then do a lot of cut-and-paste work to get the five cues on the same
page. However, I think these days much of the copying work on projects
like this is being done with musical notation computer programs that let
the arrangements be created, collated and printed out in this fashion
much easier than it used to be by hand-writing them.

Since everyone in the pit is miked and often canned [wearing headphones]
as well, the conductor can't actually yell, "Song #4!" and throw a
downbeat, so various systems have been tried to communicate this
non-verbally and still allow the orchestra to start playing right away.
Sometimes the conductor just holds up the correct number of fingers
in his left hand to designate the number of the selected excerpt as
he prepares to give the downbeat with his right; when headphones are
being used it is primarily to let the players hear themselves and those
around them, but it also allows the option of having an assistant
outside the pit to call the cues verbally into everyone's ears at once.)
Fortunately, the nature of this kind of playing means that there isn't a
lot of doubling, and certainly none (except sometimes percussion) within
the same cue. For example, if you're a reed player, your cue sheet #43
is going to be all oboe parts; you won't have four cues for oboe and a
fifth for cor anglais, making you have to grab for one or the other
instrument in a millisecond when the cue choice comes down. Your
doublings will occur between sheets, e.g. sheet #2 will be all-oboe,
sheet #5 will be all-clarinet, etc. The conductor will have full scores
for rehearsals and for the production numbers but will likely use
one- or two-page short scores for each award presentation similar to
what the players have, since for the show he's mostly doing traffic
control and needs only a simple reminder of each cue to set the tempo.

Academy Award Puzzle Chenoweth and that other punk get ENCHANTED production numbers, while Amy Adams gets only a RENT mic?

More Awards for ENCHANTED, and HAIRSPRAY By Ernio Hernandez "Hairspray" and "Enchanted" were among the winners of the Critics' Choice Awards announced Jan. 7 by the Broadcast Film Critics Association. Winners were revealed at the 13th annual Critics' Choice Awards ceremony at the Santa Monica

BAFTA Awards surprises ATONEMENT. Marion Cotillard. Tilda Swinton.

Olivier Awards nominations

Carbonell Awards Nominations 2008 The Carbonell Awards is an independent not for profit arts organization, established in 1976. Its purpose is to recognize and honor excellence in theater and the arts throughout South Florida. They have just posted their nomination for the 32nd annual cer