Varese Sarabande will release a new digital recording that includes music from Dimitri Tiomkin’s score for The High and Mighty on compact disc on November 22. The aerial-themed disc titled, “The High and the Mighty: A Century of Flight,” opens with a six-minute suite from the film. The recent release of the film on DVD (see July 2005 news) has brought a resurgence of interest in Tiomkin’s engaging score. The Smithsonian, which began celebrating “100 Years of Flight” in 2003, will display and sell the disc in the bookstore of its National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

The suite from Tiomkin’s Academy Award®-winning score was recorded at Abbey Road in London by conductor Richard Kaufman leading the London Symphony Orchestra. Olivia Tiomkin Douglas attended the session at the famed Studio One. Kaufman conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a performance of the suite late last year as part of a well-received concert of film music. The concert marked the second public performance of the suite, arranged and extended by Patrick Russ from a shorter earlier version by Christopher Palmer.

Conductor Kaufman elaborates, “it has always been a thrill for me to conduct the music of Dimitri Tiomkin from The High and Mighty in concert with various orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. And now, to have had the extraordinary opportunity to record this music with the magnificent London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studio is really a dream come true. This music is the perfect starting point for a CD which presents music from many of Hollywood’s legendary films about flight.”

With a picturesque cover painting by Matthew Joseph Peak and a wonderful selection of music performed by the LSO, the disc is a must-have for collectors and aficionados of film music. Additional tracks are by Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Goldsmith, Franz Waxman, and many others. A complete track listing can be found at www.varesesarabande.com.