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Posted By: Magus Oct 10, 2004 - 09:25 am

Last night I went to The Lord of the Rings Symphony. It was in the Roosevelt Theater in Chicago. I must say, it was quite the experience.

I first went to my Marching Band competition that we had that day. Right after we were done performing, however; I left with my family.

We went out to dinner in Greek Town. We had Flaming Cheese and Greek Meatballs as appetizers, I had Barbequed Lamb, MUCH different then our concept of Barbaqued (I'd describe it more as roasted), and we all had delicious Baklava for our dessert.

Then we went to the concert. There was a question and answer segment with Howard Shore that lasted about an hour. Then we took our seats and waited for the show to begin.

The show was conducted by Howard Shore himself. It was easily the best concert I have ever been to. They had a sort of slide show of concept art by Allen Lee and John Howe which added nicely to the overall experience.

The music was rivetting and pleased me to no end. Overall the concert lasted about 2 1/2 hours and six movements. They played music from all three of the films, adapted by Howard Shore for the orchestra. They finished each segment with the final song from the movies.

But it was so much more then simply an orchestral performance. As I mentioned earlier they had the images, not from the movie but, instead, the concept art that lended itself better to the concert. They also had the aforementioned Q&A session. But they also had a large chorus, I believe they were three separate groups, and a wonderful vocal soloist.

This just got me to thinkning. There should be more orchestral concerts and performances of music of this nature. The vast majority of music today, instrumental, is being written for movies. It's a shame that modern music is missing from orchestras because of this. I would like to see more of this type of performance done.

I'd really like to see a performace of John Williams music. He's arguably the greatest composer to ever livve, what with the quality and range of music hes done. He's very arguably the most recognizable composer, what with all of the works he's done thatn people know by heart.

I'd also like to see performances of Pirates of the Carribean, Stargate and Princess Mononoke.

Posted By: Magus Oct 10, 2004 - 09:32 am

Oh, yes. I forgot to mention that Howard Shore IS coming out with the soundtracks for the extended versiona. They will be released in a box set alongside a book about the music of The Lord of the Rings. It would explain all of the themes, the tecniques used, the symbolism and foreshadowing used, the stories behind and within them and much more. He explained some of it there and it really shows that the music is much more complex then it first appeared, even then being a wonderful complexity of melody, harmony and music.

Posted By: Ariel Mar 26, 2005 - 04:45 am

The musical compositions from Lord Of The Rings was phenomenal!

Posted By: Magus Mar 26, 2005 - 04:50 am

Yes. Yes they are. And the adaptation Howard Shore composed for the symphony were good, not necisarly better or worse then before, just different.