Oscar Week – OSCAR CONCERT

STAR WARS, JAWS, INDIANA JONES, SUPERMAN. You can’t think of these adventures without instantly hearing the music. Film scores have always been the emotional heart of the story that forever resonates with an audience.

For the first time as part of its annual Oscar Week events, the Academy presented a live “Oscar Concert” celebrating this year’s nominated scores and songs.

In what was a glorious program for music lovers, the huge audience at UCLA’s Royce Hall experienced an unforgettable night. The Academy’s 80-piece orchestra performed suites from each of the nominated original scores and prior to each piece, all the nominated composers participated in a brief conversation with film critic and radio host Elvis Mitchell about creating their scores.

Musician, Common, was the perfect host for this historic event. After a enthusiastic introduction by the actor, the evening began with Academy Governor Charles Fox conducting Jerry Goldsmith’s “Fanfare for Oscar.”

The first composer of the evening was Alexandre Desplat and his lovely score for PHILOMENA.

When Irishwoman Philomena Lee gave birth to her son in 1952, the boy was taken from her by the Catholic home for unwed mothers to which she had been consigned, and adopted out to a family in America. Accompanied by a former BBC correspondent in search of a human interest story, Philomena travels to Washington, D.C. in an attempt to find her now-grown child.

It’s the sixth Academy Award nomination for Alexandre Desplat and it’s hard to see him with no wins yet. He did talk about how he and director Stephen Frears (THE QUEEN) worked on the movie together and his love for this character who was such a strong woman.

Up next was Thomas Newman and the charming SAVING MR. BANKS

When “Mary Poppins” author P.L. Travers is reluctantly immersed in the world of moviemaking as Walt Disney prepares to film her classic children’s novel, she clashes with everyone from the songwriting Sherman brothers to Disney himself. Underlying her distaste for any alteration to her book are the roots of its story, which lie in her Australian childhood.

This is the 12th Academy Award nomination for the overdue composer.

The two discussed how the film came together and his collaboration with SAVING MR. BANKS director John Lee Hancock. Newman was thrilled to be a part of this biographical story and his score is a heart-warming piece of work.

After the conversation with Newman, Mitchell introduced Mary Poppins songwriter Richard M. Sherman to a standing ovation. He shared his recollections about Travers, the difficulty of working with her and how Disney was so passionate about bringing the book to the big screen.

Midway through the night’s program was Steven Price’s score for GRAVITY.

As three members of the shuttle crew work outside the craft to repair the Hubble telescope, they have a catastrophic encounter with a field of space debris. Cut off from all communication with Houston ground control, novice astronaut Dr. Ryan Stone must master her terror and rely on instructions from her veteran flight companion, Matt Kowalski, if she is to survive.

This is the first Academy Award nomination for Steven Price and probable win.

Price and Mitchell talked about the year (a long time to work on a movie for a composer) it took for the organic score to come together, with a a lot of trial and error. He wanted to make sure the electronic sounds complemented the journey that Ryan (Sandra Bullock) was going on.

The suite to GRAVITY was conducted by OBLIVION composer Joseph Trapenese.

It was amazing to hear the score live with scenes from the movie playing overhead. The performance ended in a climactic roar that was met with thunderous applause. The whole hall shook fiercely in a moment that made you realize this music will win Best Score on Sunday.

The British composer told Mitchell backstage that last night was the first time he’d heard the music played by a full orchestra.

Read my October 2013 interview with Price HERE.

William Butler and Owen Pallett and their score from HER was up next.

In a future when most of society’s problems have been resolved, the search for companionship continues. For Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), a recently divorced writer of other people’s love letters, the possibility of love arises from an unexpected quarter: an artificial intelligence computer operating system known as Samantha.

These are the first Academy Award nominations for William Butler and Owen Pallett and in the discussion with Mitchell, both composers talked about how their music translates the feelings and experiences of the main character. They had to revise the whole sound after Spike Jonze went from a story set 30 years in the future to one scaled back to 15 years from now.

In the end, how it would sound and what synthesized instruments were used were absolutely important to make the audience still feel as if they were in a love story.

Pallett conducted his suite from HER.

THE BOOK THIEF is the 49th Academy Award nomination (including five wins) for the composer and as one would surmise, John Williams was the final composer of the evening. No one follows Williams.

When Liesel arrives at the home of her new foster parents in a small German village in 1938, she is illiterate and grief-stricken over the recent loss of her brother. Her kindly foster father slowly begins teaching her to read, awakening in the young girl a love of literature that leads her to snatch a book from a pile set on fire by local Nazis.

The maestro was warmly greeted with a standing ovation. After discussing his work on his very emotional score, Williams took to the podium and conducted the Academy Orchestra, who he had saluted moments earlier. It was an unforgettable experience.

One of the funnest and most toe-tapping part of the concert was the performance of this year’s nominated original songs, including “Let It Go” from “Frozen,” performed by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, “Happy” from “Despicable Me 2,” performed by Jill Scott with the Debbie Allen Dancers, “The Moon Song” from “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” and “Ordinary Love,” from “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” performed by Matt Cermanski.

There was a lot of girl power going on here. Kristen Anderson-Lopez gave a beautiful rendition of her nominated, front-runner song from FROZEN, while Jill Scott and her backup dancers just made you happy!

While none of the original artists were there (saving it for the Oscar show), you couldn’t help but be caught up in these performances interspersed between the nominated scores.

It’s about time that the score and song nominees were celebrated and here’s hoping that the music branch of the Academy makes this an annual event.

Photos: Matt Petit, Aaron Poole / ©A.M.P.A.S.