The Best of Hans Zimmer & John Williams by Moonlight Queen's Hall Edinburgh 24th June 2023 Review
The Best of Hans Zimmer & John Williams at the Queen’s Hall Edinburgh tonight brought some of the most iconic film music of the last 50 or so years to the stage in a I hour and 20 minutes performance by the London Film Music Orchestra.
Founded in 2014 by classical pianist and conductor Rossi Dusheva, the LFMO brings the music of classic films and television to a wide audience via a busy touring schedule which sees a selection of some of the best young classical musicians from the UK and Europe in the orchestra line-up.
The range of music written for film and television is vast and many fine composers have enriched so much of our cultural heritage of film and television, and often without being well known names to many people outside of a surprisingly small circle of people. Two names, however, have become known to millions of people for their work on some of the biggest film blockbusters of all time – Hans Zimmer and John Williams. Tonight, underneath a large moon globe, LFMO orchestra gave us a small, but well curated selection of some of the most famous works by these two giants of film music composition plus maybe a surprise or two as well.
I have heard some of this music in so many different arrangements over the years, from the original recorded soundtracks, full orchestras, and more stripped down interpretations, so it was interesting to see how the arrangements of some of these classic film scores could be adapted to suit a smaller chamber orchestra – but still one large enough though to be filling all the space on the Queen’s Hall stage this evening.
With a programme that included music from E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Interstellar, Inception, The Blue Planet and more, some arrangements were obviously going to fit LFMO’s format better than others, and whilst some music certainly would have benefited from the deeper range of sounds that a full orchestra can provide, and in particular the sounds of some of the much larger members of the percussion section, this evening’s performance suited the orchestra and the venue well.
One addition to some of the music tonight was the introduction of vocals from soprano Jasmine Faulkner. Sometimes this added to the original music (The Blue Planet), sometimes it seemed superfluous (Star Wars), but either way Jasmine’s performance could not be faulted and the results were always interesting. Hearing the music from Gladiator stripped down to piano and cello provided one of the more unique moments of this set list.
As well as the obvious mention to Rossi Dusheva who was conductor and pianist for this show, a special mention has to go out to Jan Tabecki on keyboards who was often working away on multiple instruments to help re-create some of the more unique sounds in some of this film music (particularly some of the Hans Zimmer ones).
London Film Music Orchestra is a collective work of talented musicians on stage, so for those not specifically mentioned in this review, apologies, but there is just not enough space to do so. At the end of the evening LFMO do what they say they are going to do and their arrangements of these film classics was obviously well received by so many people in the well attended venue this evening.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
Founded in 2014 by classical pianist and conductor Rossi Dusheva, the LFMO brings the music of classic films and television to a wide audience via a busy touring schedule which sees a selection of some of the best young classical musicians from the UK and Europe in the orchestra line-up.
The range of music written for film and television is vast and many fine composers have enriched so much of our cultural heritage of film and television, and often without being well known names to many people outside of a surprisingly small circle of people. Two names, however, have become known to millions of people for their work on some of the biggest film blockbusters of all time – Hans Zimmer and John Williams. Tonight, underneath a large moon globe, LFMO orchestra gave us a small, but well curated selection of some of the most famous works by these two giants of film music composition plus maybe a surprise or two as well.
I have heard some of this music in so many different arrangements over the years, from the original recorded soundtracks, full orchestras, and more stripped down interpretations, so it was interesting to see how the arrangements of some of these classic film scores could be adapted to suit a smaller chamber orchestra – but still one large enough though to be filling all the space on the Queen’s Hall stage this evening.
With a programme that included music from E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Interstellar, Inception, The Blue Planet and more, some arrangements were obviously going to fit LFMO’s format better than others, and whilst some music certainly would have benefited from the deeper range of sounds that a full orchestra can provide, and in particular the sounds of some of the much larger members of the percussion section, this evening’s performance suited the orchestra and the venue well.
One addition to some of the music tonight was the introduction of vocals from soprano Jasmine Faulkner. Sometimes this added to the original music (The Blue Planet), sometimes it seemed superfluous (Star Wars), but either way Jasmine’s performance could not be faulted and the results were always interesting. Hearing the music from Gladiator stripped down to piano and cello provided one of the more unique moments of this set list.
As well as the obvious mention to Rossi Dusheva who was conductor and pianist for this show, a special mention has to go out to Jan Tabecki on keyboards who was often working away on multiple instruments to help re-create some of the more unique sounds in some of this film music (particularly some of the Hans Zimmer ones).
London Film Music Orchestra is a collective work of talented musicians on stage, so for those not specifically mentioned in this review, apologies, but there is just not enough space to do so. At the end of the evening LFMO do what they say they are going to do and their arrangements of these film classics was obviously well received by so many people in the well attended venue this evening.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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