A symphonic composition paying homage to the pirate movie soundtracks of Hollywood's Golden Age, featuring an epic adventure theme and an emotional love theme.

All streaming options: https://song.link/piratewaters

When we recorded this, we had about one hour of studio time left with the 100-piece Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, after two intense days of recording. Normally, you'd tackle a demanding piece like this much earlier in the session, but for several reasons, that wasn’t possible this time. I asked David Hernando Rico, who was conducting the session, whether he thought the orchestra still had enough juice left for this piece, or if we should go with a slower, softer alternative I had prepared.
He smiled at me and replied, “Let’s do it!” — then walked straight out to the podium.

I was reasonably worried that this might end up being a waste of time — that the recording would sound like what it was: the final piece of the session, with everyone playing it safe and ready to call it a day.
But what happened next blew us all away.

The orchestra switched into hyperdrive and delivered a performance full of power, passion, and pure excitement. I’m incredibly thankful to each of the musicians for pouring their heart and soul into it and turning this into such a brilliant performance.

Extra props to my friend Salvo Cannuli on first trumpet, who laser-beamed his way through the piece — and rightfully scolded me afterward for making them go through this just before the end, which I had to mitigate by inviting him for a few drinks.

composed and orchestrated by Robin Hoffmann
performed by Bratislava Symphony Orchestra
conducted by David Hernando Rico
recorded by Martin Roller
mixed by Peter Fuchs

(c) 2025 by Robin Hoffmann. All rights reserved.

Pirate Waters

The emotional orchestral soundtrack for the viral short film THE WAY UP by Drew Garcia: A blind anglerfish, alone in the deep, makes one final choice: to rise toward a light she's never seen. The score has been recorded with the Louisiana Scoring Orchestra.

Watch the short film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51eSn3m8A3A

composed, orchestrated and mixed by Robin Hoffmann
performed by Louisiana Scoring Orchestra
Recording Engineer: Aaron Thomas
Monitoring/Streaming Tech: Kurt Farrington
Contractor: David Boudreaux
Session Producer: David Boudreaux
Librarian/Head of Music Prep: David Boudreaux
Music Prep: Andrew Smith, Andrew Osano, David Hochkeppel, Billy Hochkeppel, Allison Doucet

(c) 2025 by Robin Hoffmann. All rights reserved.

Rush

Daniel Laufer

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