IF variety is the spice of life, then revered American film composer John Williams has filled the whole spice rack, scoring more than 100 movies from Star Wars, ET, Superman and Jaws to Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List.
WASO will honour this great talent in the orchestra’s second Pops Series concert for 2017, The Music of John Williams: The Original Movie Soundtracks at Perth Concert Hall, July 28 and 29.
The performances will bring one of WASO’s favourite guest conductors, Sydneysider Guy Noble, back to Perth to lead the program following a working relationship with the orchestra that began in 1999 at a Cottesloe Beach millennium concert.
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READ NOW“The last John Williams concert I did was in Hong Kong and it’s always nice to revisit the works,” Noble said.
“There’s so much music of all different genres from different films and the music he’s orchestrated just works so well for an orchestra to play live.
“There is a grandeur about them and if you’re particularly down in the dumps, your mood just improves after listening to them; like it’s bigger than normal life and that’s the exciting thing about performing it live with an orchestra. It’s a very heroic evening.”
Noble said he still felt a thrill every time he conducted the huge B-flat major chord in the opening of Star Wars, the flying theme from ET and the suite from Close Encounters.
“There will be a lot of the big stuff but then some smaller themes like from Schindler’s List and even a solo from Lincoln which is quite recent,” Noble said.
“John Williams said he was honoured to score the film about this great American president. I don’t think they’ll be making a film called Trump; if they did, it would probably be a dark comedy.”
THE ESSENTIALS
What: The Music of John Williams
Where: Perth Concert Hall
When: July 28 and 29
Tickets: www.waso.com.au
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