THESE SOUND TRACKS WERE USED at Pentacle Theatre™ to great success. Tempos were honed, layers of sound were developed, and the "virtual orchestra" was a glitch-free, seamless foundation for the productions.

The piano/vocal scores were the backbone for Bowser's adaptations, and many different recordings of the operas were consulted, including the D'oyle Carte.

"Sampled sounds" were combined with a bank of many different kind of synthesizers, to produce a rich, multi-textured sound.

For "The Mikado," Xylophone and Japanese percussion are used sparingly but effectively throughout, and every track has aural surprises for Gilbert and Sullivan experts and novices alike.

For "Pirates," the Josep Papp Broadway version was a major inspiration.

While the resulting orchestral arrangements are not entirely traditional, they do more than justice to Sullivan's brilliant music. The beautiful string and woodwind lines are intact, played flawlessly, but with warmth.

The guiding concept was to adapt the Gilbert and Sullivan scores in a way appealing to modern audiences.

These recordings will make it possible for theatres limited in means to produce a thoroughly professional sounding show, for the average cost it would take to hire one musician.

If you haven't already, take a listen to the brief sound clips on this site, for a taste of how musical and non-robotic the recordings truly are.

There are two options for utilizing the recordings: Straight from the CD, or converted to wav files and triggered from a computer. This latter method is what the sound engineer at Pentacle™ chose to do.