Our own Grandstand Show Musical Director, David Pierce, brings home the Emmy for Outstanding Musical Direction!! Dave won this incredible award, beating out his “acknowledged ‘heroes’ in the music biz” – people like Canadian Producer David Foster and Hairspray composer Marc Shaiman.  An incredible feat! Congratulations Dave!!   

Best known for his fresh approach to orchestral writing, Emmy-award winner Dave Pierce is as equally comfortable conducting a 100 piece live studio orchestra as he is producing a midi-score using computers and samplers.  His sound has been described by Film Score Monthly as “son of John Williams meets Jerry Goldsmith”. Critically acclaimed across music genres, Pierce’s style spans from big band  to cinematic infused scores.  

Dave Pierce wins the Emmy!!

An alumnus of Berklee College of Music (1992), Pierce regularly works in all major markets; New York, L.A., Nashville, Toronto and Vancouver.  He orchestrated music for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Concert Tour and Jesus Christ Superstar Gospel, and has worked with legendary entertainment producers to develop many successful projects including The Calgary Stampede’s Evening Grandstand Show, Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas Spectacular featuring The Rockettes, NBC’s Macy’s Parade and many television awards shows including the ACMA’s in USA and the Gemini Awards in Canada.   

In 2010, Pierce was the Music Director and Composer for the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games. His scores accompanied the Opening, Medals and Closing Ceremonies which were viewed by a television audience of 3.5 billion people.  The Olympic project entailed scoring over five hours of original music, producing sessions, developing creative concept with the ceremonies team and conducting over 500 hours of orchestra, choir and big band recordings.
 
Often referenced by the media as “Canada’s next David Foster”, in August 2010 Pierce won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Direction for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics in the same category as fellow nominee and musical inspiration David Foster. Pierce has arranged music for a multitude of artists including Bryan Adams, Carrie Underwood, Michael Bublé, Nelly Furtado, Jann Arden, Tommy Tune, Sarah McLachlan, k.d. lang, Alanis Morissette and Petula Clark. He has produced gold and platinum selling CD’s including EMI released CD’s for the Opening and Closing of the 2010 Olympic Wintergames featuring Nickelback, Avril Lavigne, Donald Sutherland, Hedley, Simple Plan, K-OS, Joni Mitchell, Measha Brueggergosman, Ben Heppner and Nikki Yanofsky.    

In 2005 Pierce was commissioned to compose a new work for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, featuring a symphony orchestra and one-thousand voice choir.  Symphony Orchestras across North America regularly perform Pierce’s music.

reposted with credit:  http://www.scorecreative.com/DPM/page0/page0.html  

For more information please see the Calgary Herald coverage on Dave:   

http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/Calgary+Emmy+winner+reputation+keeps+soaring/3456546/story.html

If you’ve seen the Grandstand Show already, you know it’s mind-blowing.  If you haven’t seen it yet, I’m telling you:  it’s mind-blowing!

There’s something for everyone, but for me there were two special acts. 

I’ve been a cheerleading stunt coach for 9 years.  I know what it takes to send someone flipping through the air and balanced in unnatural poses on top of other people, and it is no small task.  If one person pushes too hard or too soft, the whole stunt can come crashing to the floor.  One slip of your grip and well, it is not good.

The Russian Bar troop starts with the teamwork of cheerleading stunting, stacks on top of that the athletic and artistic feats of trampoline and squishes all that onto a teensy-tiny balance beam.  To get the picture, for those of you who have enjoyed backyard trampolining, pretend your trampoline was only four inches wide, and if you’ve also tried to walk a balance beam (or a straight line for that matter!)

Imagine if the bar also bounced and was held by two people, not two strong posts.  Having guys holding the bar provides for some margin of error on the part of the fabulous flipping girls, but having two more humans in the game means three times as much room for human error!

My guts were in my chest the whole time these girls were bouncing, flipping and spinning through the air – all with no strings.  And to perfection!

Next up, the Pinocchio-hybrid of the silk rope duo didn’t allow my stomach to settle.  Of course, they’re flying through the air and into the audience on silk ropes but they sure don’t got no other strings.  At one point they’re spinning through the air and she’s only attached by holding his hand!  The cheerleader-side of me ate-up all of the floorwork with him lifting her with one hand, and her overstretch (think splits that keep going…) was like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

In between the terrified gasps of my seat-mates, I couldn’t help but think – even I won’t try this at home!   I see the Grandstand Show once every year, but by the end of the show I was at the edge of my seat hoping the action would continue.  I’ll be back again, as often as I can this week!

The Grandstand Show runs nightly following the Chuckwagon races.  More information and tickets can be found here.

As we kick off Preview Night we took a moment to remember and think back to the action and commotion all over the world when Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” tour was about to start tonight, on July 8th, 2009, in London, England.  The Tour never happened as he was taken much too early.  For all the people out there - the cast, crew and fans, we celebrated his life in our own way.

The Calgary Stampede is proud to host and have Daniel “DaFunky Mystic” Celebre, one of 9 Principal dancers of the “This Is It” Tour, appear on our very own grandstand show stage tonight and for the 10 days of Stampede to give us a little taste of Michael through his own dancing and choreographed numbers.

DaFunky Mystic on stage with The Young Canadians

Last night at the last dress rehersal I got a chance to speak to some of The Young Canadians who appear on stage with Daniel… they are so stoked and super excited to be on stage with someone of this calibre and said “he’s so cool” - I would have to agree!