The official soundtrack for Cirque Du Soleil’s ZAIA show (Venetian Macau, China) was released on May 26, 2009. You can currently purchase on Amazon.com: ZAIA CD Amazon.com – or go to Amazon.com and search for “ZAIA”. A cut from the CD should also be on the Cirque Du Soleil 25th Anniversary CD which will also be available on Amazon.com late June 2009.

If you follow the Amazon link you can also listen to Mp3 excerpts from the album. I’ve heard rumors there will be a “Making of ZAIA” documentary released that will include many of the musicians and artists involved in creating the CD soundtrack. 

To my knowledge, this is the first Cirque Du Soleil original soundtrack CD that has been recorded by the original show musicians. Most tracks recorded in Macau (SAR) China, string parts recorded in Hong Kong.

Music composed by Violaine Corradi. As a sidenote, I was asked by Violaine to arrange string parts for the CD which were recorded by members of the Hong Kong Philharmonic. That was a very fun project to work on. Hope you enjoy the soundtrack!

I wondered if you knew of some great orchestration companies or tracks to enhance  our production of Elton Johns Aida. We have a small venue and could really use some tracks specifically for transtitions.

Any information is helpful. Thanks!

MY REPLY:

I’m not exactly sure what you mean – do you mean orchestrations of Elton John’s AIDA music, or other music? I supposed you could always use some transition music from the original CD soundtrack. There is a lot you could do with ethnic percussion if you had people double up on percussion during transitions – that’s one way to beef it up, but still keep it legit and live.

When I did the show I let the musicians open up a lot on the transitions and underscore music. Lots of great textures from the percussionists. I do remember the drummer using the edge of his stick to scrape the cymbals during the scenes by the river bank – and also one of the percussionists even blowing on an empty plastic soda bottle to get eerie distant wails. I was quite surprised how effective that plastic bottle was.

Check on your contracts for what is allowed and what is not. There are great opportunities in this score to pull from a lot of different tribal sounds and World percussion elements.

And just so no one overlooks the obvious – since you probably have one or two keyboardists in the pit, they can also do thick synth pads and effects.

Conrad