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When I first embarked on this journey, I told myself I would NEVER, EVER review animals barking, meowing, clucking, mooing, oinking, hee-hawing, or otherwise belting out holiday melodies in any of the vast array of cute voices that might possibly be twisted into service of a precious, cloying, or sweet animal Christmas CD. But like a gracelessly mishandled mirror, middle-age shatters all illusions, this being only the latest.

Verily, The Nutcracker Tweet turns out to be not at all cloying or sweet, except insofar as The Nutcracker itself is cloying and sweet, and was always so. The addition of well-timed bird chirps does nothing to further oversweeten the mix. Think of adding another jar of green maraschino cherries to a fruitcake: is it really going to make any difference? Actually, my first thoughts were: how did he get all of those bird noises? Now, that part of the project must have been lots of fun. Slogging through sloughs, standing in a duck blind, hip deep in ice water, scrambling over hilltops, padding around the high desert with big microphones.... That's what I call making a CD! Unfortunately, based on the liner notes the actual process involves far less field work and far more painstaking and tedious work with high-tech musical machinery. (O Advancing Years! Thou Leavest Me Bereft of Romantic Notions!)

The Nutcracker Tweet is a by-the-numbers retelling of The Nutcracker--with more birdsound than you'll believe, but with good, old-fashioned orchestral arrangements (painstakingly programmed) to fill in the narrative blanks. If you love The Nutcracker and if you love trying to match bird calls with birds, you may, quite possibly, love The Nutcracker Tweet.

--Richard Banks
(Reviewed in 2006)

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From the liner notes:

AniMelodies creates whimsical music CDs with real animals singing the melodies and backgrounds to well-known songs and classical compositions

Animelodies performers include:
The Avian Chorale
The Safari SIngers
The American Wildlife Minstrels

Professionally orchestrated accompaniments feature the FowlHarmonic and Jungle Bell Orchestras

Members of the Avian Chorale:
Bald Eagle, Black-headed grosbeak, Blue Jay, Bobwhite, Canadian Goose, Canyon Wren, Cardinal, Cassin's Finch, Chipping Sparrow, Crow, Fox Sparrow, Gray Catbird, Hairy WOodpecker, Mallard, Mountain Chickadee, Northern Mockingbird, Red-naped Sapsucker, Red-tailed Hawk, Red-winged Blackbird, Robin, Rufous-sided Towhee, Solitary Vireo, Steller's Jay, Vesper Sparrow, Western Meadowlark, Western Tanager, Whippoorwill, Yellow-breasted Chat.

Meet the Artist:

Gary Sattazahn, Professor of Zoological Music

A former public school music teacher, Gary has always been involved in all types of music performance, and has directed and arranged music for church choir, bell choir and band. An Eagle Scout and outdoor enthusiast, gary also spent thirteen years inbusiness management and eight years in computer programming.

According to Gary, "AniMelodies combines alll of my professional skills and knowledge to produce a product that I really take pleasure in crating. I begin each song by writing the arrangement, one note at a time, using notation software. I select the specific banks of sound best suited for each sequence, then tweak, record, enhance, and mix the entire score using 32 channels of sound. Finally, the animal voices are added form licensed recordings of real animal sounds. The complete process usually takes over a thousand hours per album, but I really enjoy this labor of love, and hope you enjoy the results as well."

The Avian Chorale & Fowl Harmonic Orchestra

The Nutcracker Tweet

Artist link

Track List