March 11, 2022
Varèse Sarabande Records Announces Deluxe Soundtracks to How to Train Your Dragon 2 (John Powell) & The Iron Giant (Michael Kamen) Available Now!
Varèse Sarabande Records has announced its March 2022 CD Club titles: HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 (The Deluxe Edition) by John Powell and THE IRON GIANT (The Deluxe Edition) by Michael Kamen. These titles are available today, exclusively on VareseSarabande.com and internationally on Intl.VareseSarabande.com.
On the heels of Varèse Sarabande’s Deluxe Edition of HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (2010) comes this 2-CD set of John Powell’s magnificent symphonic score to the 2014 sequel, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2. Beloved by critics and audiences alike, the HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON trilogy was produced by DreamWorks Animation, based on a book by Cressida Cowell. Written and directed by Dean DeBlois, the second film continues the story of a young dragon hunter, Hiccup, who befriends rather than kills a dragon, Toothless, by introducing Hiccup’s mother (voiced by Cate Blanchett) and a formidable villain, Drago (Djimon Hounsou).
John Powell created a glorious, Academy Award®-nominated score for the first Dragon film and continued his style for the sequel: gloriously symphonic and enhanced with Irish instrumentation, it is deep and rich in the classical tradition while conveying emotion and nuance for modern audiences, particularly around the joy of flight. As with the first film, Icelandic singer Jónsi collaborated with Powell and contributed vocals to selected tracks. New to the second film are performances by the Scottish bagpipe group Red Hot Chili Pipers.
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 was released as a single CD at the time of the film. Varèse Sarabande’s Deluxe Edition expands the program to two discs, including several demo tracks, with new liner notes by Tim Greiving interviewing the director and composer.
Purchase links: US: VareseSarabande
Intl.: IntlVareseSarabande
THE IRON GIANT (1999) is a modern classic, an animated film directed by Brad Bird (THE INCREDIBLES, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE—GHOST PROTOCOL) about a young boy who befriends a giant alien robot during the Sputnik era of the Cold War. Based on the 1968 book The Iron Man by poet Ted Hughes, the film is a marvel of heartfelt storytelling, with timeless themes of friendship, caring and self-determination. Creating THE IRON GIANT’s beautiful, sympathetic score was Michael Kamen – one of his last major scores and his first animated film, miles away from the action blockbusters for which he had become known, but much closer to his heart. Kamen’s gorgeous score is full of melody, humor and sensitivity, grandly performed by the Czech Philharmonic. It scales as big as the threat of nuclear annihilation, and as intimate as the goodness that connects nine-year-old Hogarth Hughes to the alien machine – who decides he would rather be “Superman” than a weapon.
Varèse Sarabande released Kamen’s THE IRON GIANT score as a 49-minute program in 1999. This Deluxe Edition fills an entire CD, with a 64-minute score program plus 13 minutes of alternates, outtakes and rare demos—including a piano-and-guitar attempt at an unrealized song, “Souls Don’t Die,” based on Kamen’s theme, performed by Kamen and Eric Clapton. Tim Greiving’s new liner notes feature new interview material with director Brad Bird, music editor Christopher Brooks and orchestrator Blake Neely, going deep into Kamen’s working process and their adoration for the gifted, late composer. A digital version of the Deluxe Edition to THE IRON GIANT is also available at all traditional download and streaming sites, with several lossless file options available directly at VareseSarabande.com and Intl.VareseSarabande.com.
Purchase links: US: VareseSarabande
Intl.: IntlVareseSarabande
Both of these CDs are limited to 2,000 copies.
The label’s CD Club launched its official start in 1989 and has been a staple of the label ever since, relaunching classic titles from renowned composers such as John Williams and Ennio Morricone, among many others.