Curated by Hans Zimmer

Producers: Steven Kofsky & Dieter Semmelmann
Artistic Producer & Director: Sandra Tomek
Executive Producer: Christoph Scholtz
Additional Arrangements by Steve Mazzaro
Art Director: Michael Balgavy
Produced by Semmel Concerts, RCI Global & Tomek Productions

Music by Hans Zimmer

Additional Arrangements: Steve Mazzaro
Additional Programming: Steven Doar
Orchestrators: Bruce Fowler, Walt Fowler, Suzette Moriarty, Kevin Kaska & Carl Rydlund
Music Supervisor: Martin Gellner & Werner Stranka
Music Coordinaton: Natalia Villanueva García
Head Copyists: Booker White & Matthias Zwiauer
Technical Score Consultant: Chuck Choi
Technical Assistant: Alejandro Moros-Capodiferro
Project Management: Oliver Rosenwald, Martin Brandl & Shalini Singh

Conducted by Martin Gellner
Musical Director: Gavin Greenaway
Featuring: ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra
Choir: Neue Wiener Stimmen & Insingizi & Friends
Soloists: Monika Ballwein, Anna Baulina, Eliane Correa, Pedro Eustache, Lisa Gerrard, Juan García-Herreros–Snow Owl, Amir John Haddad–El Amir, Lucy Landymore, Valentina Naforniță, Rusanda Panfili, Luis Ribeiro, Marie Spaemann & Aleksandra Šuklar
Recorded at "Hollywood In Vienna", Wiener Konzerthaus

"Hollywood In Vienna"
Produced by Tomek Productions
In Cooperation with Echo Medienhaus & DWTC Balgavy

"The World Of Hans Zimmer" Album
Executive Producers: Sandra Tomek for Tomek Productions, Christoph Scholtz for Semmel Concerts Entertainment, Steven Kofsky for RCI Global LLC & Sven Schuhmann for Sony Music
Recording Producers: Martin Gellner & Werner Stranka
Recording Engineers: Carsten Kümmel, Diana Mayer & Martin Mayer
Recording Assistant: Martin Gutmann
Mixed by Dietz Tinhof at Beat4Feet Studios, Vienna
Assistant Engineers: Eva Reistad & Soya Soo
Studio Manager: Shalini Singh for Remote Control Productions
Assistant to Hans Zimmer: Cynthia Park
Album Mastered by Gavin Lurssen & Reuben Cohen at Lurssen Mastering, Los Angeles, California, with Alan Meyerson at Remote Control Productions, Santa Monica, California

Hans Zimmer would like to thank:
Gavin Greenaway, Martin Gellner, Lisa Gerrard, Valentina Naforniță, Gan-ya Ben-gur Akselrod, Katharina Melnikova, Asja Kadrić, Rusanda Panfili, Marie Spaemann, Pedro Eustache, Amir John Haddad–El Amir, Juan García-Herreros–Snow Owl, Eliane Correa, Lucy Landymore, Aleksandra Šuklar, Luis Ribeiro, Aleksey Igudesman, František Jánoška, Karen Rubio Lugo, Monika Ballwein, Anna Baulina, Insingizi & Friends, Neue Wiener Stimmen, ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre Belarus, Belarus Radio & Television Choir, Christopher Nolan, Antoine Fuqua, John Woo, Michael Bay, Ron Howard, Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath, Conrad Vernon, Kelly Asbury, Lorna Cook, Mark Osborne, John Stevenson, Jennifer Yuh Nelson, Alessandro Carloni, Nancy Meyers, Ridley Scott, Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff, Jon Favreau, Gore Verbinski, Rob Marshall, Guy Ritchie, Steven Kofsky, Dieter Semmelmann, Sandra Tomek, Christoph Scholz, Sven Schuhmann, Steve Mazzaro, Michael Balgavy, Steven Doar, Bruce Fowler, Walt Fowler, Suzette Moriarty, Kevin Kaska, Carl Rydlund, Werner Stranka, Natalia Villanueva García, Booker White, Matthias Zwiauer, Chuck Choi, Alejandro Moros-Capodiferro, Carsten Kümmel, Diana Mayer, Martin Mayer, Martin Gutmann, Dietz Tinhof, Gavin Lurssen, Ruben Cohen, Alan Meyerson, Eva Reistad, Soya Soo, Shalini Singh, Cynthia Park, Oliver Rosenwald, Martin Brandl, Candace Carlo, Jillian Abood, BeBe Lerner & the ID Team, Ryan Ouchida, Julian Pastorelli, Seth Waldmann, Amanda, Linzi, Indiana, Ilan & Gabi Kofsky, Jean & Rod Mazzaro, Stephanie Olmanni, Maggie Rodford, Lashna & Teresa Tuschewski, Sara Eustache, James & Patricia Golfar, Tristan Schulze, Henning Lohner, Oliver Kogler, Innegrit Volkhardt, Zoë, Jake, Max & Annabel

... for The Duchess Of Duke Street

The Orchestra - Hans Zimmer
I think I was three years old when I attended my very first orchestra performance. It was in Frankfurt, Aurèle Nicolet was playing Bach, and I fell in love, true love, permanently and forever! Even at that early age, something about the power of the sound, and the virtuosity and harmony the players created with each other resonated within me. It was my first experience of the shared breath that an orchestra makes. Everyone always assumes I inherited my love of music from my mother, because she was the pianist that loved music more than life itself, and constantly took me to concerts. But it's not really the whole truth because I actually got it from my father. He played appallingly bad clarinet, but did so with great, unfettered enthusiasm, charm and joy. I remember accompanying him, bashing on pots and pans, as he would prop his feet up on his desk and wield this wonderful instrument. Unlike the intimidating, black-tie dress code required to attend a concert in Frankfurt, my father made me realise that music should always be inventive and playful. We had a piano at home, and I started playing. Other kids played with Legos, I played the piano. We had no TV, so I played the piano. But, frustratingly, none of the things I managed to get out of the piano had anything to do with what I was really hearing in my head. It wasn't the lack of formal technique, it had everything to do with having picked the wrong instrument. I didn't want to become a pianist, I wanted to become "The Orchestra". But that's how six-year olds think - they don't have a concept of the impossible. Nor was I interested in becoming a great interpreter of others' music, I wanted to make my own.
 
As far back as I can remember, I could hear a piece of my music in its complete form in my head. All the parts of the different orchestral instruments, all lines playing, interweaving against each other - the full, finished piece. Even now, when I sit down to write in my studio, it's actually just wrestling with sounds and technology to try and recreate what I already know and hear completed in my head. But, back then, having an orchestra was of course impossible. And then, when I was about ten years old, our music teacher brought in Wendy Carlos' ground breaking record "Switched-On Bach". I realised there was this thing out there that made it possible to imitate orchestral music by yourself: the synthesizer. So after leaving school, when I finally managed to get enough money together, I bought an EMS VCS-3 and spent a year trying to figure out how to get a sound out of it. With youthful exuberance, I wanted to emulate the sounds of strings and brass, attempting to be my own orchestra. I eventually got quite good at it, and managed to support myself on the London session scene as a synth programmer. However, it didn't take me all that long to figure out that sitting there in solitude surrounded by electronics and cables is the opposite, the very antithesis of the orchestral experience. When we play music together there is a connection we make that brings out the very best in human nature. It's not just about individual virtuosic excellence. We learn how to really listen to each other, to breathe together in rhythm as one, and to support the creation of harmony and rhythm as we inspire and connect to each other in a wordless conversation. Don't get me wrong, I still love my synths. But they exist to extend and expand the repertoire of colours within the orchestra rather than replace them. All instruments are a part of our technological development, and it's important to remember that this technology is in the service of art, and art at its best tells our history of who we are as humans. And maybe it's this storytelling aspect that drew me to film and, ultimately, a career in Hollywood. There are many terrible things you can say about Hollywood, and all of them are true; but the one thing you can't take away from Hollywood is that it arguably commissions more orchestral music than any other institution, daily, helping to keep both orchestral music and the orchestras themselves alive. So the pride I take in this concert is that I get to share with you, not so much my music, but the mastery and humanity of the musicians. Without them, there would only be silence, and it's an honour to interrupt the silence through the orchestra’s excellence, ability and soul. I think of music as an autonomous language that goes beyond the notes that are written on the page. A score is a blueprint, after all. An architect can design the most incredible building imaginable, but it's irrelevant if nobody builds it. However, while music wouldn't exist without performers, the orchestra without an audience is much like the sound of one hand clapping. There is an unspoken conversation that takes place, a singular human experience. And if we lose the orchestras, it's not just about leaving the musicians out, it's about losing a piece of ourselves that has taken quite a long time to become as sophisticated as it is now. Let them rock your socks off, move your hearts and give you the opportunity to share in the playfulness and passion of a live orchestra at their best!

Hans Zimmer at Hurtwood House (1973 - 1975) - Richard Jackson
It is a good thing that Hurtwood House (or Leith Hill Place, as it was known in those days) was never one of those conventional schools in slave to all the old traditions, because at a time when they were totally obsessed with discipline and conformity, uniforms and short haircuts, Hans came strolling in through our doors with long hair, jeans, an "interesting" coat… and his guitar. He had two passions - music and freedom - passions which left precious little time or inclination for work!! Indeed, his mother wrote after our preliminary interview to say that I may "have noticed that Hans has a strong urge for freedom and that he is very impetuous. That is a reason why he has come to blows with his educators who expect him to conform." I think it was absolutely fair to say that Hans was totally bored by the confines of narrow examination syllabuses and rote learning which had been the sole diet at his (many!) previous schools, but we found that he fizzed with intelligence whenever a more liberated teacher sparked his interest and challenged him intellectually.
 
And that was our challenge: how to turn all that potential academic ability into some form of solid academic achievement. Obviously, I would like to think that we were so enlightened as a school that we were able to find the key to unlock all that potential (and we certainly had a different approach), but I strongly suspect that Hans simply used his persuasive charm to twist us round his little finger. He was very articulate and charismatic and had a very persuasive smile which, coupled with a steely determination to do things his way, meant that he was able to spend a totally disproportionate amount of time playing his music.
 
We were a very young school ourselves in those days; these were formative years for us as much as for Hans. But then, as now, we were small and unconventional and concentrated more on allowing students to embrace what they were and realise their individuality rather than trying to force them into any particular predetermined mould. With less than 50 students in those days (300 now!), we all lived in the same house together with my family, so we all got to know each other well. We had very few facilities then, but we were a friendly safe haven for Hans where he was valued and could develop and be himself and where his creativity was celebrated rather than crushed.
 
Old reports paint a picture. In July 1974, I wrote: "As usual, I feel that we have not filled up his time enough with a structured work programme, but he has kept himself very busy, mainly painting and reading and he is talking about making a serious study of the guitar next term." And, a year later: "He has been mainly preoccupied with his music group… he is strong-willed and, like most creative people, can put boundless energy behind those things which he is interested in. At the moment, his music does not leave much room for anything else. Hans is a character. He has a very strong personality and I am glad to say that I think it is a good one."
 
His mother's kind reply said: "Yours was the only school where Hans was really happy and where he was understood. It was always a miracle to me why the other headmasters resented him and made him unhappy."
 
And that was that as far as Hurtwood House was concerned. The rest is history, as they say.
 
I think of Hans as the genius that the traditional school system failed to crush and if we have played some small part in keeping that spark alive that makes me happy.

Richard Jackson, Headmaster, Hurtwood House