James Newton Howard’s ‘Night After Night’ Album Announced

Sony Classical has announced the album Night After Night, an all-new recording of music for director M. Night Shyamalan’s most acclaimed films by Academy Award nominee and Emmy- & Grammy Award-winning composer James Newton Howard (The Hunger Games, King Kong, The Fugitive, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them). Titles featured on the record are The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Signs (2002), The Village (2004), Lady in the Water (2006), The Happening (2008), The Last Airbender (2010) and After Earth (2013). The album will be released digitally and physically on October 20,2023. Visit Amazon to pre-order the CD and digital version. A first track (Morning from The Village) is already available to stream/download now and can also be checked out below. For the album, Howard created eight suites that are piano centric and include new and original material. Featured soloists include Jean-Yves Thibaudet who performs throughout the recording, violinist Hilary Hahn who recreates her contributions to the Academy Award-nominated score for The Village, and cellist Maya Beiser who reprises her performance of An Event from The Happening soundtrack. Gavin Greenaway conducts the orchestra and chorus in Howard’s new arrangements.

Here’s the album track list:

1. Signs: The Cornfield (2:58)
2. Signs: After You Were Born (2:29)
3. Signs: Hand of Fate (4:50)
4. The Village: Morning (4:38)
5. The Village: Noah Visits (3:54)
6. The Village: Ivy Saves (3:07)
7. The Sixth Sense: Lonely Boy (1:56)
8. The Sixth Sense: Ghost in the House (3:51)
9. The Sixth Sense: Acceptance (2:48)
10. Lady in the Water: Prologue (3:01)
11. Lady in the Water: Charades (3:21)
12. Lady in the Water: Story (2:22)
13. Lady in the Water: Return to the Blue World (2:33)
14. Unbreakable: Survivor (3:24)
15. Unbreakable: Destiny (4:57)
16. The Last Airbender (4:01)
17. The Happening: An Event (2:52)
18. The Happening: Harbinger (1:53)
19. The Happening: Aftermath (3:33)
20. After Earth (5:20)
21. Flow Like Water [piano solo version, from The Last Airbender] (3:11)

When Howard came onboard during the post-production phase to score The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan said he “felt potential and excitement” in their work together. In their mutual candor, each discovered a trusting creative partner in finding the right musical expression for Shyamalan’s supernatural thrillers.

“There wasn’t really a process in that,” the director remembered, in a recent conversation with Howard about how they began collaborating. “In retrospect, the ability to do a mixture of genres, I think, is the most important thing. That is the thing that interests me. There’s the thriller-and-scares part, and the adrenaline aspect, but there’s also an equally important emotionality. The composer has to have muscles in multiple areas, and he’s one of the rare, rare composers who can do all those things.”

“Night is an incredibly positive human being,” Howard said of Shyamalan, “He was unfailingly supportive when I would start to get nervous, or upset, or doubt what I was doing. And that is a huge thing.”

“Yeah, but it’s not artifice,” Shyamalan responded, “it’s genuinely coming from my belief in you.”