Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical
A brand new take on the Tony and Olivier award-winning musical. Netflix’s new film inspired by the award-winning musical of the same name Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical tells the tale of an extraordinary girl, with a vivid imagination, who dares to take a stand to change her story with miraculous results.
The album features GRAMMY® and Tony® Award-nominated vocal songs from the original West End production written by Tim Minchin as performed by the film’s cast, as well as 10 instrumental score pieces by composer and orchestrator Christopher Nightingale.
With vocals by Academy Award® winner Emma Thompson, Lashana Lynch, Andrea Riseborough and Stephen Graham, as well as newcomer Alisha Weir as Matilda, the album includes some of the original musical’s favorite numbers like “Revolting Children,” “Naughty,” “When I Grow Up” and more, as well as a special, never-before-heard track newly written for the film entitled “Still Holding My Hand”
Of the new original song, composer Tim Minchin says, “There came a moment when the filmmakers told me they thought the film needed a new song. I was a bit skeptical about it initially, as I view the original musical as a complete work, but when I read the latest draft of the script, I realized that they were absolutely right and the film really called for an ending number. It needed to be wrapped up in some way, for all the musical and thematic threads to be tied up in a nice bow. Which is how ‘Still Holding My Hand’ came to be. And now that I’ve seen how the song functions in the film, I’m so very glad I had the opportunity to write it.”
Of the soundtrack, Tim Minchin says, “It’s now fifteen years since Matthew Warchus and Dennis Kelly asked me to help them create Matilda The Musical, and I never dreamed that the songs would still be finding new life now. Matilda The Musical has now been performed all over the world, in different accents, different languages, and by performers of all stripes; each of them bringing to the tale their own style, their own experiences, their own passion. This album is another — very, very exciting — chapter in the Matilda story.”
“The range and breadth of musical opportunity that this classic story offers up is a gift for any composer,” adds Christopher Nightingale. “The diversity of the songs is gloriously far-reaching, and my first job in writing the original score was to try and build a framework that might bind things together; find, create and extend common ground. I am incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to write a score that has had such intrinsic value in a movie. Matthew Warchus is innately musical himself, and it’s excellent to work with someone who values and understands the role music plays in a story like this.”
Coming to cinemas in the UK & Ireland November 25 and on Netflix to the rest of the world December 25.