Guest Blog: On live film scoring, & ASO’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark: In Concert”
Rich Aucoin is a musician on tour, guest writing for the Arkansas Times as he cycles his way across his U.S. performance dates to raise money for Mental Health America and The Canadian Mental Health Association.
This winter, I attended my first live-score performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with a chamber ensemble of New York’s Wordless Music Orchestra and principals of the London Contemporary Orchestra performing Paul Thomas Anderson’s "Phantom Thread," composed by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood. A friend and I waited with baited breath as the film began, uncertain how the process worked. Will we be watching a silent screening of the film and only hearing the instruments before us, or will we be hearing the audio tracks (dialogue, sound effects) of the film, minus those provided by the live musicians in front of us? I would be happy with either, but was uncertain of what to expect for those moments where there is no score. Turns out the latter is how these live-score performances around the world operate.
One of the companies that does this, Film Scores Live, a co-venture of IMG Artists and the Gorfaine/Schwartz Agency, brought the experience to the Robinson Performance Hall last weekend as the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra performed a live score to Steven Spielberg’s 1981 top-grossing film, "Raiders of the Lost Ark." With a score composed by frequent collaborator John Williams, this film is...(the full story is no longer available)
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