Ararat
The ongoing collaboration between composer Mychael Danna and film director Atom Egoyan has yielded numerous soundtrack gems, butAraratranks among their very best. Egoyan's complex film-within-a-film revolves around the Armenian genocide of 1915. Not surprisingly, regional folk instruments and choral singing play a dramatic role on this effort. Danna and Egoyan recorded much of the Armenian music on location, in a sixth-century stone church with no electricity, but it blends in perfectly with the composer's more sophisticated orchestral arrangements. This is dark, moody, and minor-keyed (not to mention gorgeous) music. By focusing on the plaintive sounds of a solo trumpet orduduk(Armenian flute) and the occasional choral track, Danna has created a truly haunting and mysterious score. A wonderful soundtrack.--Jason Verlinde