Music from some of Hollywood’s most-loved films is to be performed at the Usher Hall by Scotland’s national orchestra, along with a live orchestral screening of family 80s classic, The Goonies.
The Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) has three concerts in Spring 2019 celebrating some of finest music for film ever made. On 25 January, conductor Anthony Weeden and presenter Tom Redmond captain the orchestra on a fantastic journey through the most thrilling film music inspired by science fiction. From 2001: A Space Odyssey to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Avatar to Alien and of course Star Wars and Star Trek, it’s an adventure beyond time and space. So beam aboard, as we boldly go where no concert has gone before!
On Friday 15 March, Usher Hall becomes Platform 9¾, and the RSNO is the Hogwarts Express – so climb aboard, because with a wave of the wand from maestro Richard Kaufman, we’re off to the wondrous world of Harry Potter! Hear your favourite music from the films – from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone right through to The Deathly Hallows – brought thrillingly to life by the musical wizardry of the RSNO. Muggles are welcome too!
No one writes a movie theme like John Williams; no wonder he’s the world’s most popular film composer. And no cinema in the world comes close to how good this music sounds when it’s played live in concert by the full RSNO. Join Hollywood maestro Richard Kaufman and cellist Johannes Moser on 26 April for hit after hit after hit, from Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park and E.T. to Raiders of the Lost Ark and Memoirs of a Geisha – all in glorious 3D sound!
Immerse yourself in an atmospheric Indian soundscape as sarod star Soumik Datta and City of London Sinfonia perform a double bill of music for Indian film. Oscar-winning director Satyajit Ray’s cult and offbeat film Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne will be projected on a large screen with a re-imagined live cinematic score ‘King of Ghosts’ that features the haunting sounds of Soumik’s sarod, Cormac Byrne’s Irish folk rhythms and City of London Sinfonia. The film, which follows the magical journey of Goopy and Bagha who are granted three wishes by the benevolent yet terrifying King of Ghosts, will take you on a breath-taking and magical journey across rural India – a vintage superhero film at its best.
The second film is Around India with a Movie Camera, which presents some of the earliest surviving films from India, as well as enchanting travelogues, intimate home movies and newsreels from British, French and Indian filmmakers, drawn exclusively from the BFI National Archive’s early film collection.
One of the most celebrated family films ever, The Goonies, will be screened at the Usher Hall on 27 April with its classic score being performed live to picture by the Senbla orchestra. A fond part of childhood for several generations, The Goonies was released in 1985 to both critical and commercial success, ranking in the top 10 at the US Box Office that year and still remaining to this day a cult classic.
Directed by Richard Donner, the film focuses on a group of kids from ‘Goon Docks’, a neighbourhood in Oregon, who upon attempting to save their homes from demolition uncover a centuries old treasure map, leading them through a perilous chase with a criminal family who are also seeking the treasure. Composed by Dave Grusin, an Academy Award and ten-time GRAMMY Award winner, the score to The Goonies is as daring as its young protagonists, introducing electronic elements as well as orchestral, and heightens the drama right from the memorable opening scene’s wonderfully bouncy ‘Fratelli Chase’.
For fans of strings and screen, there really is nowhere else to be this Spring than Scotland’s only 5* concert venue – The Usher Hall.