Booktrack has released a new Salman Rushdie short story as an eBook app, complete with a soundtrack played by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. In February, the app costs 99-cents–follow this link to download the smartphone and tablet app.
Founder Brooke Geahan explained in the release: “Creating music for stories is reminiscent of the Golden Age of Hollywood, when the moving picture incorporated with musical scores heralded a new form of entertainment: movies … we are proud to showcase Booktrack’s affinity for exceptional literature and music, and our ability to conjure a new experience for a new era.”
Booktrack creates eBooks with a synchronized soundtrack, adding music, sound effects and ambient sound to the reading experience. On the Morning Media Menu last year, we interviewed Geahan about the new project.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview: “We are releasing ‘In the South,’ a beautiful story [Rushdie] wrote about two friends and the tsunami that hit India. For that we had composer John Psathas, an award winning musician and huge fan of Rushdie. So he jumped at the chance to actually read ‘In the South’ and interpret it–as well as compose a score for it.”
Geahan concluded: “The same way as a movie composer would score for a beautiful film, he composed an entire score for the short story. He was really looking at the sounds of India, especially Hindu music and what you would hear in that particular part of India where the tsunami hit. And he submitted it to Salman to get his approval and then we submitted it to the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra to play it live. That’s been recorded, it’s now going for post [production] at Park Road Post, they are the sound composers behind The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Adventures of Tintin, they are world class sound engineers and composers.”