Music Composed by William Ross and Jerome Leroy

1. One Christmas Eve (0:47)
2. Puppy Delivery (1:51)
3. Planting the Gift (3:03)
4. At the Hospital (1:13)
5. Puppy 'Accident' (1:08)
6. On the Run (2:30)
7. Emma Tracks Alden (1:51)
8. Back to the ER (1:07)
9. 'O Tannenbaum' Interlude ('O Christmas Tree') (1:19)

10. Broken Arm (1:21)
11. Bad News (0:32)
12. Midnight Snow-Flakes (1:02)
13. Towed (2:21)
14. Engine Malfunction (0:39)
15. Car Robbery (2:29)

16. License Plate (1:24)
17. Full Disclosures (2:28)
18. Gorik Takes Care of Everything (2:00)
19. 'Deck The Halls' Interlude (1:57)

20. We Carry The In Our Hearts (2:17)
21. Giving Gifts (3:18)
22. Fire! (3:24)
23. Mishap Recap (0:46)
24. Going Home (1:17)
25. Maritza (2:16)
26. The Best Christmas Ever (2:14)
27. Theme from One Christmas Eve (Jazz Version) (1:57)
Running Time: 48:31

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  Hallmark Hall of Fame’s One Christmas Eve is about a family brought closer together through some outrageous adversities, and the project fittingly brought two friends back together—albeit in a much less hazardous way. William Ross first collaborated with director Jay Russell in 2000 on the family film My Dog Skip. “We were looking for a composer who might understand the emotion and poetry of the little movie we were trying to make,” says Russell. “And Bill just absolutely nailed it. From that moment forward, I knew I would always work with Bill.” They’ve since paired on the youth romance Tuck Everlasting and the firefighter drama Ladder 49. “We’ve hit a point and a stride now where Bill almost anticipates what I’m going to ask him,” says Russell. “So our relationship is a rather quiet one, because I don’t have to say a whole lot—I know he’s reading my mind in advance.”
  Communication between the two is aided by the fact that Russell is a musician himself. “Jay is the kind of person who can say, ‘Why don’t you take the seventh out of the chord and make it minor?’” laughs Ross. “The thing I most appreciate working with Bill,” says Russell, “is there’s just a really open dialogue. He knows I understand music, having played it a good portion of my own life, so he doesn’t mind me speaking in those terms. We can really cut to the chase by speaking very specifically. The fun part of our relationship is that his answer is always, ‘Let’s try.’”
  For One Christmas Eve, which stars Anne Heche as a newly divorced mom whose first Christmas alone with her kids is nearly destroyed by a parade of catastrophes, Ross constructed a glistening gingerbread house of a score, built around the warm hearth of a lyrical main theme. “I referred to it as the ‘family’ theme,” the composer says. “It anchors us in the warmth. You have these little catastrophes—you fall into the trench, and then you get pulled out and you find a nice warm chair to sit together in. It’s one aspect of the dynamic that makes the film work, so for that moment of family closeness and respite from the struggle of what they’re going through, having a theme like that worked nicely. Jay liked the thematic approach, so we were on the same page from the very beginning.”
  The film is a comedy, so the score is flourished with lots of sprightly writing for solo woodwinds and pizzicato strings. “Comedy is, without question, the hardest kind of score to write,” he admits. “I love the challenge of finding a piece of music that works over a funny scene, but could work equally well for something else.”

  A perfect example in One Christmas Eve would be Reggie’s theme, for which the composer tried a lot of different approaches and settled on music written for a jazz trio. “It made us resonate more with his character than straight-up comedy music,” adds Ross. “If you paint a character as a clown when you first meet them, it’s sometimes harder to feel empathy for them when they struggle in later parts of the story. I try and laugh along with the characters, and not necessarily at them. It may be a subtle distinction, but I think it’s worth trying to walk that line if you can.”
  Scheduling factors had Ross call upon Jerome Leroy, his partner at Momentum RLP, to write music for some of the scenes. “It really was a huge honor to be involved,” says Leroy. “It’s this classic, Christmas mayhem type of movie, and Bill understands that style so well. It was exciting being able to do some variation on the family theme and apply that to the scenes I was in charge of.” “I tried to make sure the score would have its own identity,” adds Ross, “so we developed various motifs for each character as we were scoring it, which we would both use when appropriate. The idea was to create a musical thread that would always revolve around the story itself.”
  The score for One Christmas Eve exudes holiday cheer as it bounces on a wild sleigh ride from one wacky exploit to another, always arriving back home to the family at the film’s heart. “It’s great to be able to contrast the comedy with something warm,” says Ross. “I always try to get some kind of emotional landscape going.” Jay Russell was thrilled with the final result, and considers it another fine addition to their growing collaborative output. Ross recalls, “Jay said, ‘Bill, this is a Christmas movie, and we want there to be no mistake. We put the snow up there, we put the Christmas trees up there, and we want the music to help us right along. We need sleigh bells, we need chimes, and we need celeste! We need it to sparkle.’” “We talked about films where you can shut your eyes and know the time and place and what the film is about, just by hearing the first few bars of a piece,” adds Russell. “And Bill nailed that, because in the opening of our film, within three bars, you know exactly where you’re headed.”

Tim Greiving

"It's miraculous how, within the first few notes of the "One Christmas Eve" score, [William Ross] puts us precisely into the mood of the film we are about to watch. Suddenly the air gets a little colder and you want to put on a warm sweater and have a hot cider. The music says, "Cuddle up and get ready for a fun holiday movie."

~ Jay Russell, Director

Music Composed by William Ross

Additional Music by
Alex Kovacs
Music Programming
Mary Webster
Performed by
The Macedonian Radio Symphonic
Orchestra, F.A.M.E.’S. Project,
Skopje (Macedonia)
Conductor
Oleg Kondratenko
Recording Engineer
Giorgi Hristovski
Pro Tools Engineer
Boban Apostolov
Stage Managers
Riste Trajkovski
Evtim Ristov
Music Preparation
Dave Hage (Dakota Music Services)
Score Mixer
Matt Ward
Mixed at
Momentum RLP Studios, Santa Monica, CA
Score Coordinator
Mary Webster
Assistants to Composers
Aaron Shuman
Ben MacDougall
Anne-Kathrin Dern
Score Produced by
William Ross & Jerome Leroy
Mastered by
Patricia Sullivan, Bernie Grundman Mastering,
Hollywood
Album Art Direction by
Javier Burgos

"The Christmas holidays are always a time for reconnecting with family and friends and the warmth of those relationships in our lives. "One Christmas Eve" was the chance for me to "musically" revisit all of those wonderful feelings...with plenty of smiles and laughs thrown in for good Holiday measure!"

~ William Ross

Anne Heche plays Nell Blakemore in the new Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, One Christmas Eve. Nell’s a newly‐single mom who wants this Christmas to be extra-special for her two kids. It turns out to be special, indeed, but it’s not what she had in mind. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Chaos reigns in this entertaining comedy, and the notion of `family’ takes on a whole new meaning.

The riotous race to ruin starts when Cesar Cortez (Carlos Gomez) tries to drop off a puppy at the Blakemore's front door. His heart's in the right place, but his foot isn't. He trips and falls. Nell (Anne Heche) and her two young kids take Cesar to the hospital, where, in no particular order, newly-separated Nell meets a dreamy doc (Brian Tee), Nell's 11-year-old son and the puppy fall down a hole in a construction zone, a new-on-the-job security guard (Kevin Daniels) has their car towed, and a nasty nurse harasses them all. Later, for good measure, they get car-jacked.

Nell had wanted this Christmas Eve to be the best ever--and it turns out a memorable one. As she later says, “The greatest gifts are the people in our lives. The family we are born into, and the family we choose. The best gift of all is love.”

Directed by Jay Russell, Hallmark Hall of Fame's One Christmas Eve is written by Holly Goldberg Sloan, produced by David Rosemont and executive-produced by Brent Shields and Cameron Johann, and stars Anne Heche, Kevin Daniels, Carlos Gomez, Griffin Kane, Ali Skovbye, and Brian Tee. Music by William Ross and Jerome Leroy.

One Christmas Eve, from Hallmark Hall of Fame premieres on Hallmark Channel November 30, 2014.

Hallmark Hall of Fame: One Christmas Eve
Hallmark Channel: One Christmas Eve

www.williamrossmusic.com

William Ross is a prolific award-winning composer and arranger whose work has spanned feature films, the recording industry and television. He has composed music for such films as The Tale of Despereaux, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, Touchback, Ladder 49, Tuck Everlasting, and My Dog Skip. He also adapted and conducted the score to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

His work in television includes the scores to Hallmark Hall of Fame’s Away & Back, One Christmas Eve and In My Dreams, Lifetime’s Steel Magnolias, the critically acclaimed mini series Me and My Shadows, Life With Judy Garland, as well as the Emmy-winning music for the Tiny Toon Adventures’ episode “Fields of Honey.”

Mr. Ross has arranged music for a remarkable list of artists including Barbra Streisand, Celine Dion, Josh Groban, Andrea Bocelli, Michael Buble, Idina Menzel, Stevie Wonder, Mary J. Blige, Kenny G., Sting, Seal, Quincy Jones, Aretha Franklin, Rod Stewart, Bette Midler, Barry Manilow, David Foster, Mariah Carey, and Whitney Houston, to mention just a few. The records on which he has worked have sold over 250 million copies combined in the United States.

He has served as Music Director and Conductor for many artists and occasions, including Barbra Streisand’s historic 2006, 2007 and 2012 concert tours, and the 79th Academy Awards ceremony in 2007, for which he received his second Emmy Award. He reprised this role three times, for the 83rd, 85th, and 86th Academy Awards.

His arrangements have been featured in many films and include such hits as Andrea Bocelli’s “God Bless Us Everyone” from Disney’s A Christmas Carol, Celine Dion’s Grammy-winning “My Heart Will Go On,” from the motion picture Titanic; “Believe,” sung by Josh Groban in the film The Polar Express; “The Prayer” with Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion from Quest for Camelot, for which he received a Grammy nomination; and the Academy Award Nominated song “Run To You” sung by Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard.

Arrangements by Mr. Ross have been a part of the opening ceremonies of several Super Bowls along with the opening and/or closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Calgary (1988), Atlanta (1996), Salt Lake City (2002), Torino (2006), Vancouver (2010) and Sochi (2014). He was awarded an Emmy Award in 2009 for Outstanding Original Music for his work on the song “Hugh Jackman Opening Number,” featured during the 81st Academy Awards ceremony.

Mr. Ross is the recipient of four Emmy Awards, two BMI Film Music Awards and was nominated for an Annie Award and two Grammy Awards.

www.jeromeleroy.com

Jerome Leroy is a media composer who has written original music for feature films, TV movies, short films, video games and live events.

While honing his skills working for various renowned Hollywood film composers, Jerome started his own career by scoring numerous short films, including the multi award-winning animated film Brother (American Pavilion winner at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival).

Since then, Jerome has written original music for the independent feature films A Better Place (directed by Dennis Ho), After Ever After (directed by Rakesh Kumar), IKLLR (directed by Jeffrey Coghlan), The Mistover Tale (directed by Harry Tappan Heher), and wrote additional music on New Line Cinema’s A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, Touchback (starring Kurt Russell), and 50 to 1 (directed by Academy Award winner Jim Wilson). His work in the film industry also includes stints as music programmer (Lionsgate’s tentpole movie The Hunger Games and Universal’s The Tale of Despereaux), arranger (The Liberator, with music by Gustavo Dudamel), orchestrator, and score producer.

In television, Jerome’s music can be heard on Hallmark Hall of Fame’s Away & Back (starring Jason Lee and Minka Kelly) and In My Dreams (starring Katharine McPhee), Lifetime’s Steel Magnolias (starring Queen Latifah) and The Note, Hallmark Channel’s highest-rated original movie. He co-produced and wrote music on the score for OWN’s groundbreaking docuseries Operation Change, and most recently co-composed the score to Hallmark Hall of Fame’s One Christmas Eve (directed by Jay Russell) with composer William Ross.

In addition to his work in long form entertainment, Jerome has written or produced music for various media projects, most notably for video games (Studio Cegos’ Time Explorer), commercials and corporate films (Coca-Cola, Chevrolet, Johnson Controls, etc.), and theme park rides (Disney World, Disneyland, and Universal Studios). He also arranged songs for a variety of artists, including Idina Menzel and teen sensation band Il Volo. The multitude of projects he has participated in has allowed him to record at every major scoring stages in Los Angeles, London (including at Abbey Road with the London Symphony Orchestra), and Eastern Europe.

A co-owner of Momentum RLP, a boutique music creation company operating from a 3,000sf state-of-the-art studio, Jerome lives with his wife and two-year-old son in Los Angeles.

Acknowledgments

William Ross and Jerome Leroy would like to thank Brent Shields, Cameron Johann, Jay Russell, Stephen Lotwis and Pam Fitzgerald; Cheryl Tiano and the Gorfaine-Schwartz Agency; Oleg Kondratenko, Aude Nassieu Maupas and Laurent Koppitz; Dave Hage, Matt Ward, Alex Kovacs, Mary Webster, Courtney Blooding, and the whole Momentum RLP team; and, last but not least, Carol Pool and Perrine Vaillant.