Sometimes the best part of a movie is the music. Not all film scores employ the traditional resources of a symphony orchestra; but when they do, it can be argued that they are worthy descendants of what is popularly known as “classical music.” It is therefore no surprise that such compositions originally intended to enhance visual storytelling can sometimes be featured in performances in some of the world’s great concert halls.
For the upcoming Aiken Symphony concert, Maestro Scott Weiss decided to give the audience a “movie night” featuring nine selections from some of the most memorable film scores.
No such program would be complete without works by John Williams, who has amassed 51 Academy Award nominations over the course of his legendary career. The March 28 program will include some of the music that Williams composed as part of his long collaboration with directors Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard.
Instantly recognizable to most audience members will be “Adventures on Earth,” which Williams scored for the finale of the 1982 film “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.” This particular piece demonstrates the composer’s skill in matching the emotional atmosphere of each situation, which, in this case, includes the famous bicycle chase, the boy Elliott’s tearful goodbye to E.T., and the ascent of his spaceship.
Other featured Williams-Spielberg collaborations will be the “Flight to Neverland,” which is used in the first flying sequence in the 1991 movie “Hook” and repeated every time that Peter Pan, played by Robin Williams, takes to the sky, and “Hymn to the Fallen,” which was intended as a musical tribute to those who gave their lives during the 1944 Normandy invasion, the setting for the 1998 film “Saving Private Ryan.”
The fourth Williams score of the night — it will actually serve as a kind of overture for the entire program — will be the suite from “Far and Away,” a 1992 film directed by Ron Howard and starring then-married couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as Irish immigrants caught up in the Oklahoma land races of 1893, a mad dash to claim one of the 42,000 plots open to settlement in what had previously been Indian Territory.
The music that Williams wrote for the film was intended, in part, to capture the sense of awe settlers must have felt in experiencing the vast vistas of the American West, a feeling commingled with a lingering attachment to the life left behind.
The Western is, of course, a classic American film genre; and the Aiken Symphony concert will include one of the best scores representative of that category, Argentine-American Lalo Schiffrin’s suite from the 1960 movie “The Magnificent Seven,” which focuses on the efforts of seven gunfighters who make the fateful decision to defend a small Mexican town against a gang of marauders.
The night’s selections will span almost the entire history of modern filmmaking, from “Tara’s Theme” from the 1939 classic “Gone with the Wind” to Michael Giacchino’s score for “Star Trek,” the 2009 film version of the popular science fiction series starring Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto.
“Tara’s Theme” deserves special mention since it was the creation of Austrian-born Max Steiner, who is sometimes called the “father of film music.” He is among the first composers to employ in his movie scores leitmotifs, recurring themes associated with a particular character or place, a device most often associated with the operas of Richard Wagner. In this case, Steiner uses “Tara’s Theme” not only in the film’s opening sequence but also any time that Scarlett O’Hara feels the pull of her home place. Steiner himself wrote that Tara is a “living thing, giving and demanding life.”
Much the same place-haunted leitmotif plays a major role in Howard Shore’s score for “The Fellowship of the Rings,” which includes a melody associated with the Hobbit habitat of the Shire, thoughts of which fuel Frodo’s determination to complete his dangerous task and return to the place he loves best.
The concert will begin at 7 p.m. A pre-concert Illuminations Talk will be held at 6:30 p.m., and will focus on the 2026-27 season.
Tickets are $45 or $60 depending on seat selection.
For more information on “Movie Night!” at USC Aiken’s Etherredge Center, visit aikensymphony.com.