This year, at the end of June, Soncinemad took place for the second time in Madrid and when it comes to us (and some of the composers involved), it was the last one.

Let’s see what went wrong.
First of all, the congress facilities. Although it was held in the world’s greatest complex of movie theatres, Kinepolis, the part of it that was reserved for the congress made a very gloomy and dark impression. In the congress/lecture room (a movie theatre) there was hardly any light so only the first row could see the expression on the face of the speakers. Photographers and camera men could not do their work properly because of the lack of light.
The sound in the room was awful – sometimes to loud, sometimes to quiet, sometimes with a very high interference, that could have easily destroyed the eardrums, in short, the sound was never as it should be. When one comes to a film music festival, one expects a good sound system. What the composers had to say was very interesting, but they deserved a better entourage..!

The rehearsels.
The rehearsels for the concert in the Kinepolis were a drama. Not one of the composers was very happy with the time they were given to rehearse with the orchestra – a total rehearsel time of two hours for a concert of almost three hours..! – and one composer went away shaking his head because his music was not rehearsed at all.
Not enough light here too. The musicians complained because they could not read the music and it took almost an hour before there was – a little – more light. Christopher Gordon, standing in front of the orchestra, said to the musicians in the back rows: “I can’t see you without a passport..!” But he was not amused.

The concert in Kinepolis.
We can be short about the concert. The hall was not sold out, about a quarter was empty and the people who stayed at home were right this time.
The conducting composers did the best they could but working with an uninspired orchestra is very difficult. The music sounded dull and boring, even when Carles Cases tried to set the orchestra on fire. Later on one of the Spanish composers said: “They have destroyed my music..!”

And that was not all…
Suppose you are a soundtrack collector and you have the chance to meet your favourite composer. What do you do? You practise some questions for him and grab all the covers you have from his CD’s, because you want them autographed. You line up with all the other guys and girls and finally you stand face to face with your hero. And before you can say one word, the organizer next to you says: “Only one CD cover a person..!”. And the next thing you know is that you are standing outside the building.

Saved by Alan Silvestri.
Was everything that bad? Happily no! On Saturday evening there was a concert with music from and conducted by Alan Silvestri and organized by the Spanish television. It was a fantastic concert with a brilliant orchestra and choir and Alan Silvestri who gave all he had. It gave us some light in the darkness, after all.

A short note…
It’s a pity that this festival was organized so badly. There were composers with great names who did the best they could, the second concert was brilliant, but there was a lack of ambience, that surrounded the whole festival. Maybe the organizers could drive 300 kilometres south to Ubeda to find out how a festival can be organized…