Mark Isham is an award-winning American composer born on September 7, 1951 in New York City, New York. He composed the music score for the Fly Away Home motion picture.
Isham, a pioneer in electronic music, was initially approached by director Carroll Ballard who asked if he would be interested in composing a score for his 1983 film Never Cry Wolf. Isham tried and enjoyed it, even though he had never considered becoming a film composer. He also felt that he and Ballard shared the same sense of space in their aesthetics. Because of this previous collaboration, Mark Isham was called to compose the Fly Away Home soundtrack in 1996 and arrived much earlier in the process than is usual, allowing him to soak in the subject.
Isham began temping various music styles to the available images to see what would fit best, starting with etheral music, but when he temped to the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, he immediately knew what kind of sound the score should have. Even though Isham is well-versed in electronic music, he felt that accoustic music was most suited for the emotions Fly Away Home tried to convey.
The film crew wanted a theme song for the production, and music editor Joe E. Rand proposed the traditional 10,000 Miles ballad. Mary Chapin Carpenter was Isham's first choice for the interpretation and Carpenter agreed to sing, as well as lend her voice for specific cues on the score. The song was first heard during the opening car accident scene.
Isham divided his score into five main themes for five concepts explored in the motion picture as he felt that themes associated with concepts work much better than themes associated with characters. Isham thus composed a mother theme, a flying theme, a goose theme, a victory theme and a caper theme.
The mother theme featured Carpenter's vocals and was heard when Amy's mother was present or remembered, when Amy grieved or when she became a mother to the geese herself.
The flying theme came up when Amy saw her father flying a hang glider on her first morning in Ontario. It reappeared with the ultralight aircrafts and the various flying experiences.
The goose theme would evoke the quirky goslings and the humour they brought to the story, making use of accordion, clarinet, marimbas and solo violin.
The victory theme was brought when the geese followed the ultralight aircrafts for the first time and when the Aldens achieved what they had set out to do.
The caper theme was associated with the migration operation and all its preparations.
The 10,000 Miles melody was hinted here and there with the various themes as the story came to its conclusion and the song was heard again when Amy reached her destination.