Patrick Russ - Bringing Harmony to Life By Photographer, Educator & Writer Steve Tabor
Patrick Russ - Bringing Harmony
to Life
By Photographer, Educator & Writer Steve Tabor
Music is the heartbeat of life for many of us. Music stirs the emotions within us. It has a way of bringing back memories, soothing our souls during hectic times, drawing us closer together, creating a bit of tension and serving as inspiration.
Patrick Russ with Leslie Bricusse, composer
Bringing music to life has been Palos Verdes resident Patrick Russ’ passion for over 40 years. As a symphonic orchestrator, Russ has had the opportunity to create orchestral arrangements for heads of state, renowned vocalists, symphony orchestras, motion picture scores and video games.
Since earning his Master of Arts in Music Composition from the University of California at Santa Barbara, Russ has created orchestral arrangements for more than 200 films. His list of composer clients includes Oscar winners Elmer Bernstein, Maurice Jarre and Rachel Portman.
Patrick Russ with Christopher Parkening and Elmer Bernstein at Abbey Road Studios 1999
His film credits include Dead Poets Society, Far from Heaven, Ghost, Gorillas in the Mist, Manchurian Candidate, Prancer, Out of Towners, 61* (HBO), Robin Hood–Prince of Thieves, ¡Three Amigos!, 28 Days, and Wild, Wild West.
Russ’ arrangements were featured during televised events including Live at the Lincoln Center featuring Placido Domingo and Christopher Parkening; Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman Sing Spirituals with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall; and Lean by Jarre, A Public Broadcasting System (PBS) tribute to film director David Lean through film scores by Maurice Jarre.
His 80+ published symphonic arrangements have been premiered by a variety of orchestras including the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Vienna Philharmonic.
He has created live-to-film orchestra performances for North by Northwest, High Noon, Vertigo, Bride of Frankenstein, Casablanca, and other classics. Additionally, he has published classical guitar arrangements for solos, duet, chamber ensemble and concerto performance materials featured on the album “Artistry of Christopher Parkening” and six other compact discs.
Among his career highlights Russ lists several Olympics opening and closing ceremonies, arrangements for the White House beginning with a State Dinner for President Ronald Reagan, up to the 2021 January Inauguration with Lady Gaga’s performance of The Star Spangled Banner; and the 2003 Grammy Award for “Best Classical Crossover Album” for the album ‘Previn Conducts Korngold’ featuring previously unfinished suites from the films Captain Blood, Elizabeth & Essex, The Prince and the Pauper, and The Sea Hawk, which he re-orchestrated from sketches and audio tapes. Also, symphonic concerts for such diverse occasions as Pope John Paul II at the Vatican, the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America at Disney Hall, and “Leonard Bernstein’s 70th Birthday Tribute with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra” featuring his arrangement of ‘America’ from West Side Story.
Patrick Russ with interviewer Linda Danly and songwriter Richard Sherman during an interview for The Film Music Foundation.
Russ indicates that as a young child his parents sparked his interest in classical music. Russ explains, “My father played the trumpet and my mother was an excellent pianist. Growing up in the 1950’s there were no computers, video games or distractions from T.V., music was an important source of recreation.”
As a small toddler Russ would pick up classical piano music books, open them to a random page of Mendelssohn, Chopin, or Mozart and ask his mother to play as he crawled onto her lap. Russ admits, “The placement of her fingers on the keyboard seemed so random, yet the music was stunning, and I knew there must be a secret to this!”
Russ began playing piano at 2½ years old with his mother. He explains, “I could only play one note with each hand, so my simple part was to play middle C and then G above it on the white keys. She would play “train” by sounding chords slowly, first a bass chord with both of her hands on my left, lifting her hands over my head, she would play a treble chord on the right. Gradually, she would play the chords faster and faster. The sheer volume of sound was incredible, and I was amazed to be contributing with just my two notes chiming in.”
Up until the time he entered UC Santa Barbara, Russ played the piano, but he admits that he did not enjoy practicing. So, he took his performance exams and managed to place out of all the years of required piano performance. “It felt like a chapter closed,” Russ says, “I never practiced again!” However, he continued playing classical guitar because “It did not require an ensemble to sound complete. Guitar gives the illusion of many voices, and is a trick to arrange for, and I enjoy the challenge.”
Russ never had the desire to perform in public. He explains, “It may seem odd coming from someone who tells 70 players in an orchestra what to do. Thankfully, I have to finish everything beforehand, when I have the time to think about what I’m doing. Musicians all have different gifts. Those session players are brilliant sight-readers when the red recording light goes on.”
Patrick Russ with composer Michael Beardon, Music Director for Lady Gaga
Russ earned his bachelor’s degree in Music Composition at UC Santa Barbara. Then he enrolled at Regent College at the University of British Columbia. Russ credits his year at Regent College with settling is career goals. “Regent College is designed for Christians of all denominations who will return back to the workplace after spending a graduate-level year in general Christian studies.” Russ admits, “A year of reflection sharpened my focus. I realized that I loved orchestra, but I didn’t want to be a struggling composer with no promise of a better career, and devoting years of my life to the effort. By contrast, no studio hires a large orchestra unless the movie has a very big budget, and it is a reasonably good film and script. The working experience of an orchestrator was completely different from the limited opportunities I would have as a struggling young film composer.”
During his graduate studies in Music Composition, his master’s degree project was arranging a few guitar-with-orchestra pieces for his long time guitar teacher Christopher Parkening. The pieces were eventually recorded as a CD “A Bach Celebration.” Russ shares, “While we were making the CD, I became more aware that I would like to orchestrate symphonic music for a living, but the only real livelihood to be had was in movies.”
Russ explains that the role of the composer, arranger and symphonic orchestrator are vastly different. “Many talented people can arrange a piece at the piano, but then don’t know what to do for an orchestra, so they ask me to help. Some composers have detailed knowledge of the instruments, but in movie work for example, the composer often only has time to write a few lines on a page before moving on to the next scene in the film. That’s OK, because I know what the composer means, so I flesh out the sketch for the orchestra.”
Russ looks back and credits the beginning of his career to a luncheon in 1983 that was arranged by Parkening with Elmer Bernstein and his wife Eve. “Christopher who is a great friend and always helpful, suggested that I call Elmer, and said, ‘Let’s have lunch’. So, they invited us to their home in Santa Barbara. Elmer, who often helped young people interested in music, asked me to phone back in ten weeks because ‘I have some doings.’ He was working on the score to Ghostbusters, and he let me orchestrate his sketch for a two-minute waltz for the fountain scene. I eventually became Elmer’s orchestrator on many films and concert suites until his death in 2004.”
Russ explains that how the music is used makes a big difference in the overall arrangement. Russ points out “A film has a dialog, so the music mustn’t cover the dialog. The timing must be exact, not a second more or less. A film score may take a left turn to catch something on screen, but you might not want that out-of-character moment for an orchestra concert. Popular music or television scores might have only a few players available, but you don’t want half the symphony just sitting there, so you need to include them. The film, High Noon, had no violins in the original version, but you can’t ask the string section of the New York Phil to sit out.”
When it comes to variations in orchestras, Russ explains, “Stage productions have a pit orchestra with a physical limit on the number of players that fit into the pit, so instruments have to be chosen carefully. Classical music has a full symphony, but any unusual instruments from a film score, like a saxophone or harmonica or an extra keyboard, would require an additional hire for the symphony, which can be too much for their budget. So, you need to make sure that a symphonic arrangement can be performed with just the orchestra players at hand.
Patrick Russ with, on the left, Richard Kaufman, Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and on the right, Neal Percy, moderator.
During Russ’s musical career he has had the opportunity to work with many composers including Elmer Bernstein, Dimitri Tiomkin, Maurice Jarre and Jerry Goldsmith. He explains that his role as orchestrator is to make the composer’s vision a reality.” When starting a new musical collaboration, Russ says, “The composers are quite detailed about what they like and don’t like. By the end of the film, and on future projects, they assume you will know what to do, so their sketches are much less detailed. My goal is to ensure that composers won’t have to worry about anything, and that their intentions in the sketch will be just what they hope to hear fully fleshed out.”
Russ has had the opportunity to work with a variety of artists including Placido Domingo, Rod Stewart, and Lady Gaga. According to Russ, “You really want to showcase the singer at their best, everything is created around the singer. Placido has such a powerful voice, from 20 feet away your ears would ring, and your bones would vibrate. You never worried about the orchestra overpowering him. Rock and roll singers have a soft pop or folk voice. You allow the singer a moment to prepare for difficult passages or high notes. Like any instrument, you incorporate what makes the voice look good, giving them cues within the orchestration, even if it means adding a beat here and there so they can prepare for the next moment.”
Russ reflects on an orchestration for Jessye Norman during a set of Duke Ellington songs. “She read through the piano part and said, ‘That’s beautiful. But I need my starting pitch.’ I couldn’t believe I forgot something so basic. If you like opera, listen to Puccini’s famous tenor aria “Che gelida manina.” The instrumental introduction sounds out the singer’s opening pitch forever!”
Russ’s orchestral talents have not been limited to stage and screen. He had the honor of creating orchestral arrangements for the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Atlanta and Salt Lake City as well as the closing ceremonies for Olympic Games in Sochi. Russ explains, “Once you’ve done a live event like the Olympics, the organizers often call you back. For many years, the Olympic music was produced and supervised by Don Mischer and Mark Watters, who have won several Emmys for their work. Mark is a film composer and a longtime friend. Live broadcasts often hire people like us who are used to working under pressure because the pressure doesn’t bother us. I still remember working through the night to finish the six-minute Simple Gifts arrangement for the Atlanta games. The introduction was given by President Clinton and featured the entry of the Olympic flag and a big 200 voice choir. The Atlanta organizers had unexpected delays, then ran out of time and couldn’t wait another day with the Games around the corner. The job is hardest when your first thought must be your best thought, and there’s no time to look back.”
Russ also adapts well known musical scores, film scores and classical pieces for a number of symphonic and concert orchestras. Adapting these compositions can be challenge. Russ points to a variety of situations he can face, “Symphonies may wish to perform an opera selection without a singer, this requires a different balance from the original orchestration. If they play a movie selection, it needs to make sense without the film, and so editing is required, and different instruments. Some superhero films may use six or seven trombones, but the symphony only has three, so those film scores need to be adapted for the group at hand. Miklós Rózsa wrote very clear sketches for his film scores. He insisted that his music be adapted to the concert hall, and not necessarily keep the original ensembles called for in the films. Rózsa explained that Gershwin and other composers also adapted their music for the venue at hand, whether it was an orchestra stage pit for a musical, or a larger orchestra performance. I still practice Dr. Rózsa’s advice when I adapt film scores for the concert hall.”
Elmer Bernstein
In addition to his professional duties, Russ serves as President of the Film Music Foundation (FMF), a non-profit organization focusing on film research, education and assisting film composers. Elmer Bernstein founded the organization and served as President. Russ was asked by the Board of Directors to serve as President following Bernstein’s death in 2004. Russ points out, “The Board of Directors is all volunteer, so 100% of the funds go to where they are intended.” The FMF is endowed, and its education and preservation work will go on indefinitely. The FMF is sponsoring music exhibits at the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. The organization website can be found at www.FilmMusicFoundation.org.
In addition to his work with FMF, Russ serves as Vice Chair of the Moving Image Craft Documentation (MICD). Russ outlines that the FMF was asked by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science (AMPAS) to co-produce their composer interviews to add to the collection of oral history interviews that are being preserved as part of a whole library of interviews involving the Cinematographers Guild, Screenwriters Guild, etc. These interviews will be a permanent historic collection on the art and craft of filmmaking.
Despite over forty years in the music industry, Russ is not slowing down. He is currently working on a recording of ballet music by Dimitri Tiomkin with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Russ explains that he devotes some of his time to mentoring young orchestrators. “Mentoring young professionals has been an important priority, so that what I’ve learned doesn’t end with me, just as it didn’t end with my mentor Christopher Palmer in London, or his mentor Miklós Rózsa from Hungary. Young people assist as proofreaders and fill in scores, and quickly realize that they don’t know what they don’t know, so together we bridge the deficits. I am particularly pleased that several now work in the industry and are renowned orchestrators in their own right. The work is so specialized that it really has to be taught one on one.”
In closing Russ points out, “I’ve finished scores on airplanes and trains, in Hawaii, Montana, or Europe. As long as the work gets done, people are happy. It’s a good balance between life and work.”
Portraits by Kelly Russ
Elmer Bernstein Portrait provided by the Elmer Bernstein Foundation
Other Photographs provided by Patrick Russ
Steve Tabor Bio
This South Bay native’s photographic journey began after receiving his first 35 mm film camera upon earning his Bachelor of Arts degree. Steve began with photographing coastal landscapes and marine life. As a classroom teacher he used photography to share the world and his experiences with his students. Steve has expanded his photographic talents to include portraits and group photography, special event photography as well as live performance and athletics. Steve serves as a volunteer ranger for the Catalina Island Conservancy and uses this opportunity to document the flora and fauna of the island’s interior as well as photograph special events and activities.
Watch for Steve Tabor Images on the worldwide web.