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Home , Ney, Wild Arabia

1. wild arabia titles 2. sand, wind & stars 3. discovering oil 4. sea snake 5. nabateans 6. scorpion 7. together 8. flamingos 9. the jewel 10. camel race 11. darkness 1 2 . l i g h t s 13. mountains 1 4 . o r y x 1 5 . m i s t s 16. monsoon 17. dawn / beauty 18. beach foxes 19. date palms 2 0 . d o c k s 21. leopard 2 2 . d h u b 2 3 . w a t e r 24. the desert 25. technology 26. harrier hunt

27. futures a bedouin father and son journey through the vast sandy deserts of arabia in order to race their camels at 28. heartlands the eid festival i first began talking to chadden hunter, on the border of oman and yemen, the spectacular dhofar coast is home to more wildlife than the rest of who, with dan rees, was series producer on arabian peninsula combined wild arabia, in october 2010, though it wasn’t until early 2012 that i began producing the first musical sketches. from these early conversations, we knew we wanted the music to reflect the dramatic landscapes and rich culture of arabia but it would also need to be sensitive in dealing with the human stories and animal behaviour sequences. as with projects such as wild china, the great rift, and ganges, i set out to familiarise myself with the music of the region, while thinking carefully about the scripts and stories for each programme. there is a balance to be struck between being authentic, yet still connecting with the audience, and little point in delivering a score that is regionally accurate yet inaccessible to the viewer. the first recording sessions began, even while film crews were still shooting, at abbey road studios with percussionist, paul clarvis. paul brought three simple rhythmic outlines to life by multi-tracking a variety of traditional percussion instruments (darbuka, dholla, riq etc) together with bass drum, shakers, hand claps, brushed and bowed cymbals. these percussion parts formed the basis of many of the scored sequences across the series. for wind instruments i went to dirk campbell to record ney, kaval and duduk phrases against the early melodic ideas i had developed. i asked the guitarist kit morgan to interpret some ideas for me on oud, and these went on to form the basis of the camel race introduction, as well as camels race in highly lucrative competitions some of the driving, rhythmic pieces you hear in the programmes, including the diary sections at the end of each one. as the programmes began to take shape, i began to think about how we were going to use the orchestra. i’ve worked with the bbc concert orchestra on many projects and for wild arabia we had a full string section, brass, solo woodwinds, harp, percussion and timpani. themes began to emerge; sweeping melodies for wide desert landscapes and a haunting motif for the opening episode’s lead animal character, the arabian oryx. other ideas, particularly for episodes 2 and 3, were less about ‘place’ and more about drama and storytelling; the coming of the monsoon, or the cityscapes of dubai. as the day of the orchestral recording session approached the pieces went off to william goodchild to be prepared for the orchestra. on the day of the recording session the orchestra has no time to rehearse, and each piece has to be successfully performed after just a few run- throughs before moving on. will and i have a long track record of working together and this collaboration is key to getting the orchestral parts right on the day. abbey road studios is my favourite place to record, and with andrew dudman engineering, william goodchild conducting, and the bbc concert orchestra ready to play i always have the sense that the music no longer belongs to me, as the live performances bring the scores to life. at unique footage of a male arabian leopard on patrol in the dhofar mountains of southern oman this point, my job is to feedback on each take to ensure i get what i need out of the session but, essentially, this is the fun bit. with the orchestral sessions in the bag, it was back to my studio to replace synthetic orchestral and instrumental parts with real recordings. while i enjoy working with samples, synths and loops, in my opinion, there’s no substitute for real musicians playing real instruments. for a few of the more complex pieces i brought in dan brown to mix the elements together, and he added guitar and bass parts which were then used throughout the score. looking back on the series, and the long process of scoring that was involved, i am incredibly grateful to have had not only a great production team, but also the opportunity to work with so many talented musicians. great visual sequences inspire great music, and great music can lift and augment a scene in ways which are impossible to measure but nevertheless felt. i hope this is the case with wild arabia, and my thanks go out to everyone who was a part of it.

barnaby taylor, march 2013 credits: (left) an adult female saker falcon bred for the sport of falconry music composed by barnaby taylor over half a mile high, the world’s tallest building, the burj khalifa, towers over the rest of dubai the bbc concert orchestra conducted by william goodchild recorded at abbey road engineer: andrew dudman percussion: paul clarvis ney, kaval and duduk: dirk campbell oud: kit morgan guitar and bass: dan brown tracks 1, 3, 5, 10, 27 and 28 mixed by dan brown with thanks to: dan rees, chadden hunter, brian leith and the wild arabia production team dominic walker and bbc worldwide chantal santhiapillai at restless creatives gillian, vincent and imara all music published by universal music publishing photography credits: front cover, pages 3 and 4: chadden hunter. pages 2, 5 and 7: fredi devas. page 6: david willis. page 8: Susan gibson. silva screen records ltd: executive producers: reynold d’silva and david stoner mastering: rick clark release co-ordination: pete compton cd design: stuart ford

SILCD 1426