Films in concert: May the orchestra be with you

This article was originally published in our Summer 2024 issue. Click here to subscribe to our quarterly print magazine and be the first to read our January 2025 issue features.

London’s Royal Albert Hall is abuzz with excited chatter. Every seat is filled, right up to the cavernous ceiling. But these are not your average concert goers: dotted between the sparkly dresses and smart jackets are elves, dwarves and hobbits – lots of hobbits. This unusual audience has come from across the UK – and beyond – to see the last instalment of Peter Jackson’s beloved Lord of the Rings trilogy with Howard Shore’s score performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO).

This is just one example of the many events presenting popular films alongside real-time performances of their scores. According to a study published by the RPO in March, film screenings with live orchestra comprised a quarter of all orchestral concerts in the UK last year. For each concert, the recorded soundtrack is removed from films such as Ghostbusters, Amadeus and Black Panther, leaving familiar dialogue and favourite scenes to be enhanced by performances from orchestras including the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Chineke! Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO).

LSO first violinist Maxine Kwok regularly performs in live-to-projection concerts alongside more standard repertoire. She is more prepared than most to venture into the world of film, having grown up on a diet of soundtracks: from Korngold’s The Sea Hawk to John Williams’s iconic Star Wars score. It was through these that she came to discover the LSO as the orchestra that brought George Lucas’s imagined worlds to life. ‘It was the only orchestra I wanted to be in,’ she recalls. And when she joined in 2010? ‘I thought it was destiny.’

Lights, camera, action! Films such as Blade Runner and The Death of Stalin are brought to life with live orchestra © Paul Sanders

Although the commercial benefits of presenting a concert of music that already has a dedicated fanbase and is likely to guarantee healthy ticket sales cannot be ignored, the artistic demands of these productions are not to be underestimated. Even life-long film fan Kwok admits that these concerts can present a challenge.

The shortest film of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, for example, is well over three hours long and, aside from a brief interval, the performers must keep their focus for every second. ‘I think a lot of people don’t always appreciate how physical a job it really is,’ says Kwok. ‘You’re sitting there, potentially playing nonstop for two hours at a time.’ For music director Pete Billington, who recently led a UK tour of 1980s dystopian classic Blade Runner (an Avex Classics International Production licenced by Warner Bros), these long stints of intense concentration can be daunting. However, Billington prefers it to dipping in and out. ‘The advantage of conducting is that you are pretty much “in the music” at all times; you’re constantly monitoring the score, the screen, the click- track and the players. I don’t really have time to switch off.’

Vocalist Kaitlyn Lusk, on the other hand, faces the opposite problem. Hand-picked in her teens by Howard Shore’s creative team for the original Lord of the Rings symphony tour, she has grown up performing the films’ soundtrack with orchestras around the world. As a vocalist on quite an orchestrally focused project, Lusk explains: ‘I have longer amounts of time on stage that I’m not singing. It’s a long time to physically stay warmed up and mentally checked in. In The Return of the King, for example, I sing at the very beginning, and then I don’t sing again until the very end.’ Coming on and off stage for her solo parts is not an option for Lusk, who feels ‘the artistic investment would not be the same,’ so she has created her own solution; combining meditation and breathwork to avoid stiffness with strategies designed to support the guest choirs and child soloists who perform alongside her.

As well as coping with these long periods of concentration, artists must also balance the task of replicating (in real time) a soundtrack that may originally have taken weeks to record with the inevitable unpredictability of live performance. Lusk works as part of a small core team – comprising conductor, assistant conductor, production manager and sound engineer – who have developed an intimate knowledge of the composer’s vision. ‘We’re the ones who know how things with the project should look, how they should sound, what Howard wants creatively,’ explains Lusk. ‘Howard is very hands on with our team, even to this day, and is involved in the creative process of bringing each show to life in each city that we visit.’ Lusk’s role as the ‘creative nuclei’ of each performance includes supporting guest performers singing in Sindarin and Khuzdul (Tolkien’s Elvish and Dwarvish languages), but more importantly helping them ‘learn the musical language that really consistently speaks in each of the films.’ For Lusk and her team, their fidelity to Shore’s voice and vision has been key: ‘That’s why I think the show has been as successful as it has, because we stay so loyal to that creative core that Howard is so passionate about.’

'It’s a long time to physically stay warmed up and mentally checked in': Kaitlyn Lusk has developed strategies to remain engaged with each performance, even when she's not singing ©Kaitlyn Lusk

Having performed on almost 100 recorded film and television soundtracks, Kwok also navigates the divide between a film’s recorded soundtrack and its live performance. In the studio, musicians will play at full energy whenever microphones are on, but in much shorter bursts than in marathon full-film performances. Production teams will follow a schedule for recording sections of the score out of order, she explains, often starting with the biggest number to give sound engineers an idea of the technical requirements of the music. Playing the score from start to finish as part of a live-to-projection concert gives performers vital understanding of each film’s narrative storyline and how it is reflected in the music. ‘If you’re playing Star Wars: A New Hope from beginning to end there’s a true thread,’ says Kwok. ‘There’s a narrative; it’s an arc of music.’

Recreating that soundtrack is more challenging than recording the same music in a studio, so why add the unpredictable element of live performances? Tommy Pearson, founder of London Soundtrack Festival, a new event set to bring an inaugural programme of screenings, masterclasses and conversation events to the capital next spring (19–26 March 2025), feels that the concert hall experience adds a new dimension to each film presented. ‘It’s a completely different way of experiencing film. People have asked me: “Why, if you’re looking at the screen, do you have the orchestra?” But actually it’s just a different way of experiencing it; you feel the music rather than just hear it due to the physical presence of the orchestra.’

One of the broadcaster-turned-concert-producer’s first projects with his concert production company Big Screen Live was a live-to-projection production of Interstellar involving Hans Zimmer, Stephen Hawking, Michael Caine and Christopher Nolan. The project, which premiered in London in 2014, augmented the live orchestra with the famous Royal Albert Hall organ. ‘Of course, the score is full of organ and you really feel that in your gut when you’re sitting in there,’ says Pearson.

As music director, Billington can feel the difference in the audience response: ‘Watching a film in a cinema or at home can be quite a passive experience but in the concert hall setting it feels like the audience is fully engaged in the performance,’ he reflects. ‘That’s the power of live music – I think it’s fairly universal, no matter the concert format.’

For Lusk, performing to audiences of film fans enhances the experience. ‘When Gimli makes a little joke, or Legolas comes in with his bow and arrow or, in the third movie, when Eowyn says, “I am no man”, people react in a human way,’ she explains. ‘It’s like the appreciation you feel when the pianist lifts their fingers off the keys or the conductor breaks the final cut off – except we have it in the moment that they’re feeling it. It creates this interchange with the film, with us, with the audience, with the orchestra, with the choir, and even the conductor.’

Although there might be some overlap, those in attendance at films in concert are, by and large, not your typical classical music audience. At a 2022 performance of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi with the LSO, I felt quite out of place for turning up without a single piece of Jedi memorabilia. From Pearson’s production perspective, this contrasting audience is a gift: ‘The audience that comes to see a film in concert is not the one that’s seeing them play Mahler or Shostakovich the next day. For us, that’s fantastic – and it’s great for the industry because it brings in new audiences.’

For Billington, the audience’s dedication to the films they love can be quite daunting. ‘Blade Runner especially seems to have a passionate following,’ he says. ‘There’s a little pressure that comes from that in terms of looking after something over which people can often feel a strong sense of ownership.’

Maxine Kwok: 'It breaks the stigma of going into a concert hall because it’s giving them something that they know they’ll like, and I think that’s always the first step for people' ©Tom Lovatt

For Kwok, however, performing for people coming from outside what might be considered the classical music ‘norm’ is refreshing. ‘The audiences for film concerts and game concerts tend to not worry so much about the conformities of the concert hall, so they will express that they’re excited. At big moments in films like the Indiana Jones series, some people really can’t help themselves but move with the music and gesture, and when it’s over they will whoop and cheer.’ For Kwok, being a member of the orchestra that recorded many of the iconic film soundtracks that feature in live-to-projection concerts adds an extra element to the experience. Kwok recalls a moment at the end of Return of the Jedi, when the audience got to their feet as ‘music performed by London Symphony Orchestra’ rolled across the screen during the credits. ‘We were pretty much in the dark during the concert because the focus was on the screen, but at that moment they shone this big light on us and everybody in the hall cheered. That was so lovely to know they appreciate the huge legacy that [the players who performed on the soundtrack in 1983] have left for us.’

For Kwok, an audience of film fanatics is not just a change of pace from her usual repertoire, but also a reassuring sign that new audiences continue to try orchestral music. ‘I’m convinced that it has brought more people in and given them a chance to see what an orchestra can do,’ she insists. ‘It’s a wonderful way to introduce people who are a little bit apprehensive that they might not understand a concert. It breaks the stigma of going into a concert hall because it’s giving them something that they know they’ll like, and I think that’s always the first step for people.’

Once they’ve tested the waters, Kwok argues, it is not such a big shift to the classical concert hall. ‘You’re basically listening to classical music; the only difference is that film music has been written to show specific scenes at certain points. As you can see from the popularity of film music concerts, people appreciate the music, and it stands perfectly well on its own on the concert platform without the need for the imagery for which it was designed.’At a recent performance of Return of the Jedi the audience got to their feet as ‘music performed by London Symphony Orchestra’ rolled across the screen during the credits ©Florence Lockheart

Pearson has already seen this crossover in action. As well as presenting blockbuster epics, he also tackles less obvious choices like Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin and Scott of the Antarctic, the 1948 adventure film with a score by Vaughan Williams. The latter project drew in a mixed audience of classical fans and film fans who might not have even realised they were listening to the work of a titan of British classical music. ‘It was an interesting one from an audience perspective,’ recalls Pearson. ‘That actually did bridge the gap, because we had the classical people in as much as the film fans.’

Once new audiences have faced the initial hurdle of getting through the concert hall doors for the first time, there’s no telling where their now-expanded musical taste will take them next. For Kwok, the path is clear: ‘So much of classical music paints pictures, it makes a story in your head. You cannot tell me someone who loves music for Star Wars would not appreciate Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring or The Firebird. If you like film music, you’ll love pieces like Debussy’s La Mer or Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, Strauss’s tone poems; things that have a story behind them that the music is invoking.’

The popularity of most of the films on offer in this distinctive format and the dedication of their respective fans might lead one to assume that these concerts are primarily a commercial venture, using the already established audiences of cult films to ensure healthy ticket sales. However, it is clear that Kwok, Lusk, Pearson and Billington all take seriously their responsibility as custodians of films that mean so much to their audiences and their dedication to their craft and clear respect for each score pushes the formula beyond the commercial.

‘You still have to ensure that all the things that make classical music so beautiful – its fortitude, endurance and technique – are present in film productions and film music,’ says Lusk. For her, and for the team behind what is now the longest-running live-to-film projection project to date, the formula is the same as any classical music venture: ‘Put the music first and the rest will fall into place.’