Art and the Music of LOTR (A feature in FILM SCORE MONTHLY ONLINE) Part 1 of 2

This announcement comes with great excitement and pride (and can now be revealed after a few months working quietly behind the scenes on it):

The Lord of the Rings: Art for Ascension, Decline and Evil Times, Part I (An artist's enchantment with the music of Middle-earth)

LOTR-focused Cover of December 2014 Issue of FSMO 

is an illustrated article created exclusively for Film Score Monthly Online (FSMO) the film music industry's premier magazine.  In two parts, it offers a body of original art inspired specifically by Howard Shore's soaring, magisterial film score for The Lord of the Rings (taken as a three-part operatic whole) as a distinct telling of JRR Tolkien's masterpiece on its own merits despite its functional and inseparable ties to Peter Jackson's cinematic adaptations.  

Screenshot of Page 1 of Article in FSMO

The art pieces also make reference to The Hobbit film scores as heard so far at the time of writing the article (between June-September 2014).

Inspiration is taken jointly from Shore's music and author/musicologist Doug Adams' excellent analysis of Shore's musical construction and thematic world building.  Adams' intelligent work on the LOTR scores ignited my interest to such a degree that creating art as a response was a fascinating prospect.

How exactly do you create art that acknowledges a film score?  How does the art keep its own originality and avoid resembling the films the music accompanies, whilst somehow acknowledging them?  Interesting challenges to face to be sure and part of the motivation to set myself the task.

FSMO is a subscription-only publication and as such the article cannot be linked to here but the cover image and screenshot of my article is included to present a taster.  It is beyond fantastic to get content included here in this issue that puts a focus on Shore and Middle-earth, with the cover feature being an item where Doug Adams and Howard Shore wrap up the LOTR journey.

My thanks go to Kristen Romanelli and the editorial team of Film Score Monthly Online, Doug Adams and Howard Shore for the invaluable source material that provided my reference and inspiration.