Shore to premiere 'LOTR Symphony' in Atlanta? (1 Viewer)

[Jack Q]

Hey, everybody. New guy here.

I saw an ad in the Atlanta paper that sounds pretty cool if I'm reading it right. This is straight from the ad:

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra presents the North American Premiere of 'The Lord of the Rings Symphony'

Six movements for orchestra and chorus
Music from the motion picture trilogy
(with Alan Lee's original illustrations)

Composed and Conducted by Howard Shore
featuring the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus

3 concerts only (in Atlanta, I'm assuming - Jack)
June 4 & 5

I hadn't heard of this even happening, let alone premiering in Atlanta. Anyone else? If Howard Shore is really going to be there, that's wonderful, but it sounds like a cool night out regardless.

- Jack

 

[Robert Anthony]

Sounds like a great extra for a Extended Edition DVD release

I'd love to see that if I had the shot.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Dan Brecher and myself will be seeing the concert in London in May. This will be the only performance using the London Philharmonic orchestra, as heard on the soundtrack recordings.

 

[Lew Crippen]

And Rob sees the new guy and raises him an orchestra.

Welcome to the forum Jack.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Hey, it's the local gig!

Not my fault it's coming home

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

I think there are now some performances booked in other U.S. cities that will be earlier than Atlanta. The ASO website used to say "North American debut" or "U.S. debut" but now it says "Southeastern debut".

I've got four tickets on order for the June 5th 2pm performance.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

Can I just make the pont this is the North American premiere? Not the actual premiere, which occured in NZ two days before the film premiere?

It was a great concert, and well worth catching.

 

[Dan Brecher]

The downside to the London performance is its venue. I attend a lot of classical music concerts and the Royal Festival Hall remains one of my least favourite venues due to the rather dated acoustics. He could have sold out the Albert Hall with this one, though the Festival Hall is the Philharmonic's home it must be said. The Barbican remains one of my favourite venues, which is home to the LSO.

We've got good seats in the stalls to make the best of it, and we were to the side of the stalls a year ago when he came to conduct the two Fellowship movements, and things were not so bad then, but it is an auditorium so very dependant on one having the best seats in the house. Hopefully some of the choir members will not be as nervous this year though (the young lad really needs to belt out ‘In Dreams’ this time).

The six movements are broken down as follows:

Movement One
The Prophecy / Concerning Hobbits / The Shadow of the Past / A Short Cut To Mushrooms / The Old Forest / A Knife in the Dark

Movement Two
Many Meetings / The Ring Goes South / A Journey in the Dark / The Bridge of Khazad-dum / Lothlorien / Gandalf's Lament / Farewell to Lorien / The Great River / The Breaking of the Fellowship

-- interval --

Movement Three
Foundations of Stone / The Taming of Smeagol / The Riders of Rohan / The Black Gate is Closed / Evenstar / The White Rider / Treebeard / The Forbidden Pool

Movement Four
The Hornburg / Forth Eorlingas / Isengard Unleashed / Gollum's Song

Movement Five
Hope and Memory / The White Tree / The Steward of Gondor / Cirith Ungol / Anduril

Movement Six
The End of All Things / The Return of the King / The Grey Havens / Into the West

It is possible that all performances after the London one in May will see the last two movements expanded slightly to include motifs from the extended edition of The Return of the King (as the London performance is taking place shortly after the schedule of recording the extended edition score in Watford). This is not to say any of the cue segments noted above are certain to be renamed to denote any possible extension of course, as for example the two Fellowship movements included some of the extended edition score motifs when it was performed in 2003 (much to the delight of Rob and myself).

Matthew may be able to confirm if Shore weaved any extended edition score into the Two Towers movements.


For those scattered about the US interested, here is some information about the venues and dates you can now book for (there is also one for Montreal):

Montreal (23rd of Feb 2004):
http://www.montrealenlumiere.ca/engl...en.NoTitre=715

Ohio (26th of March 2004)
http://www.columbussymphony.com/news...lordfriday.htm

Atlanta (4th & 5th of June 2004)
http://www.atlantasymphony.org/calen...info/rings.htm

Seattle (16th & 17th of July 2004)
http://www.seattlesymphony.org/seaso...anceDateID=545

Dan (UK)

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Gotta say I'm a little disappointed that they're including the songs. They both sound rather contrived to me. I'm not keen on Lennox's performance on Into The West and the singer for Gollum's song just sounds like she's trying to be Bjork. At least neither of them will be singing. I don't think either of the songs add anything to the films (they're in the credits, so what could they add?). Considering that the music for the songs is essentially re-hashed work from other parts of the films, I'd much rather hear more score in the concert - I mean, where is Shelob's Lair?

 

[Haggai]

I'll chime in here to point out that I started a thread over in After Hours for anyone interested in going the Columbus, OH March 26 show, and specifically the possibility of car-pooling from southeastern Michigan.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

Not that I remember. Certainly there was nothing that sounded terribly new (remember I had only managed to see the EE once at the time.)

If you are going to a performance, choose your seats wisely. At the NZ concert, he had screens behind the the orchestra showing various images by Alan Lee and John Howe - I was in the stalls and couldn't see the screens. So try for seats in an an upper level if possible.

 

[Kami]

Any word on a Toronto, Canada show? I'd really like to see this.

 

[Aaron Schmitt]

Sadly they're leaving out one of my favorites, the theme from Amon Hen. I was really hoping that the extended version of that would be in the symphony. Oh well, I'm still going to go and enjoy the performance with 5 friends. I've had tickets for the July 17th concert in Seattle since last summer, July can't come soon enough!

Aaron

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Kami - I have been tracking the announcements for preformances and so far TO is not on the list. Surprising as you think Shore would love to come home to do a performance!

 

[Scott_MacD]

I'm a little bit hacked off that I missed my opportunity to get tickets for this.. but no matter. eBay has been my friend through many dangers.

I'll be going to the London concert.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Scott - both Dan and I got tickets directly from the LPO box office and NOT the one for the Festival Hall. They cost more, but we got 'em after the RFH sold out.

 

[oscar_merkx]

other dates include

April 16th in Antwerp, Belgium

On Saturday 17th July 2004, Shore will peform two concerts at 2.00pm and 8.00pm with the Seattle Symphony at the Benaroya Hall, Seattle.

 

[Dan Brecher]

Well, it was there in the performance of the first two movements early last year. Again, Matthew may be able to note if it remains in the full six movement presentation. I certainly hope so, as ‘The Great River’ flowed gracefully into ‘Amon Hen,’ and it was indeed a take on the extended edition version with the added choir motif.
As memory serves, it then went into ‘The Departure of Bormoir’ as well, an as yet unreleased cue from Fellowship (until later this year at least), which was host to a motif Shore brought back twice in Return of the King.


It's unwise to judge by cue titles alone if you look at the listings in the concert programme and relate them to those on the albums, because there's a lot of skilful tweaking and editing. 'The Old Forest' for example, is actually an edit of The Black Rider and The Treason of Isengard.

There's often more of a nod toward the film renditions of a cue over the album ones in the live performance too. Khazad-Dum would be a notable example in being a watered down presentation of the film version leading into that beautiful passage underscoring the Fellowship's exit from Moria and their mourning of Gandalf on the rock face (again, another motif resurrected in Return of the King, in 'The Grey Havens').

Daniel

PS: Scott - e-mailed you a couple of times so far this year when tickets went on sale, and also about your HT upgrades. Everything got bounced back. Did your e-mail change?

 

[ToddP]

Does anyone know where I can find information on performance dates as they are released? I'm really hoping that the show makes it's way to D.C. with HS conducting for the National Symphony Orchestra.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

That makes two of us, Todd

Take care,
Chuck