By Tanya Steele
Coldstream resident Bruce Rowland and The Man from Snowy River composer will see his music played live to the film for the first time by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra later in August this year.
In preparation for the event, Rowland and his team have spent months digitising the original score, converting the music to a digital format for use by the orchestra.
“It’s been physically digitised so that you can just basically press a button and have the score,” he said.
Rowland said the musicians would access the music with digital tablets.
“You won’t have to carry around piles of music that would be a metre high, it’s between 45 and 60 minutes of music,” he said.
The live to screen performances of Man from Snowy River in Melbourne will showcase Rowland’s iconic and award winning film score, with stars Sigrid Thornton and Tom Burlinson joining in as special guests.
Rowland’s career spans a number of motion pictures, cable movies, mini-series, series, animations, jingles and special live events but said that Snowy has had a long run.
“It’s had long legs,” he said.
The score is quite technical and uses signature French horns which require a full orchestra to play.
“I’ve worked with Melbourne Symphony many times and they are a wonderful orchestra,” he said.
Mr Rowland and his wife Maria will also attend the premier of the event and he said ahead of the the big day he would check a few things over to make sure they are working correctly.
“I think it’s lovely that Snowy is being revived,” Maria Rowland said.
The Lilydale historical society recently hosted the couple for an afternoon Q and A and Mr Rowland said it had a good turn out.
“I think I’m pretty much a down to earth kind of person,” he said,
The composer has been in Australia’s ear for many years, often in places you wouldn’t realise – he has written over 4000 television jingles amongst his movie scores.
“You write to match the subject so it changes. So sometimes it’s going to be romantic sometimes it’s not, sometimes your music is telling the audience something that is not obvious on the screen,” he said.
Mr Rowland originally wrote the score for the film that launched his career in Mooroolbark and said when you have to get something done, it will happen.
“Inspiration comes from desperation, if you have a deadline it has to be done,” he said.
The musician and composer continues in his work from his home studio and said he is happy living quietly in Coldstream.
“These days I’m very fussy and selective about what I do,“ he said.
“I’ve got to a stage where I’ll do something if I really want to do it and if there’s a real challenge to it.”
