In Monday’s (7/13) Los Angeles Times , Randy Lewis writes, “Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard usually doesn’t go in much for guest appearances. … The Bellingham, Wash., quartet, however, made a sizable exception last weekend during its sold-out concert at the Hollywood Bowl, bringing what Gibbard introduced to the crowd as ‘our 50 new best friends’ on stage in the form of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The catalyst for Gibbard’s change of heart? Composer-orchestrator-arranger David Campbell, who, over the last couple of decades, has become the go-to guy for outside-the-box collaborations bridging the worlds of pop and classical music. It’s a role he’s fully inhabiting this month at the Bowl, having crafted orchestral arrangements for the Death Cab show last Sunday, rocker John Fogerty’s three Independence Day performances a few nights earlier, Ray Lamontagne’s set this weekend and Faith Hill’s two appearances next week.” Campbell notes that when he first started doing pop orchestrations in the 1970s, no one wanted the strings to be very apparent, but that changed in the late 1990s when he did arrangements for Alanis Morissette’s “Uninvited.” “The song from her 1999 ‘MTV Unplugged’ album put the orchestra front and center.”
Posted July 13, 2009
