Music from the Movies
by Brendon Kelly

Alan Williams is very quickly building a collection of work within the “promo” market that is varied, powerful and genuinely diverse in subject matter. His music is highly entertaining, thoroughly professional, performances are polished and more importantly the music is always well written.

This can certainly be said for this 1998 IMAX film Mark Twain’s America. The CD is a brief thirty minutes but what a gorgeous half an hour it is. The music ebbs and flows highlighting amongst the strings some super solo writing for woodwinds and various parts of the orchestra.

From my experiences with listening to the music of Alan Williams I have always found that I can compare his music (or certainly some of the cues within the score) to the works of more famous composers and scores. With Mark Twain’s America the temp track may well have been James Newton Howard’s Wyatt Earp particularly when Williams is musically describing the western locale.

This CD is an excellent listen and well worth getting hold of; it is a subtle and beautiful piece of work that will probably go unnoticed amongst many collectors.

Someone give this composer a major film so the music can be released on a major label. Surely Alan Williams deserves that!