A Simple Soul - Saint Mary Mazzarello - Founder of the Salesian Sisters - Music Score Project

In January 2017 Mary's Dowry Productions filmed for four new films: Saint John Bosco, Saint Mary Mazzarello, Saint Dominic Savio and Saint Jacinta of Fatima.  Now, a year and a half on, we are still suffering from a backlog of productions but are knuckling down to get them done!  In 2014, Mary's Dowry Productions had fourteen new releases!!  It's slowed down a lot, I'm not sure if it's just that we're getting older or are just so busy.  Anyway, this year has been so slow but we have done a lot of filming.  It's no good having about 8 productions' footage just sitting there though, so we decided to just get them done.  This week has seen us working on St. Mary Mazzarello production - the last from the January 2017 filming day and I am happy to say - it is currently mixing down!!

Saint Dominic Savio DVD, Mary's Dowry Productions

Saint Don Bosco DVD, Mary's Dowry Productions

Jacinta of Fatima DVD, Mary' s Dowry Productions

In all truth, I wrote the entire music score in just one day today.  That's rare, sometimes I can spend hours on just 3 minutes, but I took away all pressure and just enjoyed it.  I used a lot of improvisation methods so much of it was just playing in and adding to what I'd written.  It was really fun.  The main instruments, besides my usual base of strings, soundscapes, Trilian Bass, harp, guitar, was to use Celtia again by Eduardo Tarilonte.  I'd not used these fantastic female voices since I wrote the music score for St. Julian of Norwich.  They're so gorgeous and inspiring.  Whilst I was waiting for the video file, I wrote an introduction with pizz strings and doubled these up with Baroque Guitar from Era II.  This kind of made it's own interesting fusion sound - very nice.  I was looking for soundscapes to add atmosphere and I used Ancient Spirits and Ancient Tree from Forest Kingdoms - all Eduardo Tarilonte.  This added the right depth of mystery when approaching St. Mary Mazzarello's story.

Screenshot from Mary' s Dowry Productions DVD 'Saint Julian of Norwich: England's Mystic'

The rest of the score was straightforward and I found the story of this wonderful saint very inspiring and uplifting.  It was nice to re-visit St. John Bosco but from the perspective of the Salesian sisters, I not only learned about Saint Mary Mazzarello but more about Saint John Bosco too.

One thing I did use was Nykelharpa from Forest Kingdoms, or Era II, I forget which one.  I'd not used it before but it was great and had a realistic click for each key press.  I gave this the lead for a while in the middle of the score then switched to harpsichord.  The result: the sound of a long time ago, the sound of very pleasant interesting underscore - perfect!

Nykelharpa - Instrument used in 'A Simple Soul: Saint Mary Mazzarello'

We are moving straight on to completing our new film on Saint Thomas Garnet, English Martyr, it will be great to switch into Medieval mode - that's my all time favourite.

We are now up to working on the productions we filmed for in March 2017.  Still behind schedule, but making progress.  For our NEW WEBSITE and listing of everything available please visit: www.marysdowryproductions.org 

I will speak about my latest CD Album release - Calm Your Spirit With Music Volume 6: Water of Life in another post - this is the last of my Mary's Dowry Productions soundtrack series and focuses on the music score I wrote for our production in Saint Piran of Cornwall. I love it!