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STAR WARS - Live To Projection Concerts


TownerFan

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If you guys book your tickets which performance would you pick? @TownerFan, @Jim Ware, @mahler3, @Marian Schedenig @ChrisAfonso(or anyone else I might have missed)? Would be nice to catch up. I'm going to book mine on Friday and there are five of them. Friday and Sunday nights don't work for me at all. But all the other performances are fine.

 

Karol

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2 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

I'm planning for Saturday night. Speaking of which, you seemed to have good seats for E.T., which were those?

That was a different venue altogether (Royal Festival Hall).

 

Karol

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So there doesn't seem to be any clear sources (just mentions in a couple of newspaper articles about the tour) but it would appear the 'Novello Orchestra' has been confirmed to be performing for the other dates outside of London... Does anyone know about the quality of this ensemble?

 

I was hoping for maybe regional orchestras to do each of the other dates in the UK as I've had experiences of LTP concerts with a 'freelance' commercial ensemble (Harry Potter) but have also seen E.T and Raiders of the Lost Ark with the RSNO and the difference in quality was astounding! Not just the playing but also the mixing- I think it could have something to do with the fact that it is probably more important for an established orchestras' reputation to have the event be up to a certain 'standard' whilst the company that are doing the Harry Potter shows seemed to be a little more sloppy... Obviously this 'Novello Orchestra' have their work cut out for them doing Star Wars and it would be pretty rubbish if they weren't up for the job! 

 

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19 hours ago, crocodile said:

If you guys book your tickets which performance would you pick? @TownerFan, @Jim Ware, @mahler3, @Marian Schedenig @ChrisAfonso(or anyone else I might have missed)? Would be nice to catch up. I'm going to book mine on Friday and there are five of them. Friday and Sunday nights don't work for me at all. But all the other performances are fine.

 

Karol

 

I'd probably choose for the Saturday, but I guess it's gonna be the one which sell out faster. When the tickets are going on sale?

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Oh wow. The original orchestra performing the score for the first time in 40 years?!  THAT would be something to experience.  I wonder if there are any members still with the orchestra who were a part of those original sessions.

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Similarly looking forward immensely to this.

 

1 hour ago, rpvee said:

I wonder if there are any members still with the orchestra who were a part of those original sessions.

Not for Star Wars, but for Empire Strikes Back onwards yes - Lennox Mackenzie (First Violin) and Gerry Ruddock (Trumpet).

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The National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, DC) just announced their 2018–2019 season yesterday, and it includes live-to-projection performances of the original trilogy and The Force Awakens, from September through February:

 

 https://www.kennedy-center.org/nso/schedule

 

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/6a128229#/6a128229/24

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Don’t panic folks, when the Proms tickets go on sale it’s not unusual to have a queue with 9,000 people in it.  Even if you are in the queue for an hour, you’ll get there eventually.

 

That said, I booked today off work just to make sure... 

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1 minute ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Done. Loggia 25.

Relieved.

 

...Saturday evening that is.

 

Did your order take long to process? Mine is still going. Been a couple of minutes. 

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I was in the queue behind you, so no, not that long.

 

I did have a couple of database errors when adding to cart, then had to login again, and it took a bit to load the various pages of the checkout process, but not several minutes for those.

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2 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Tickets are reserved for 18 minutes, so I hope you can get through in time.

Have 2 minutes 29 seconds to try and get this sorted. Not looking good.

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Got there exactly at 10am and was waiting for 44 minutes. Got a decent stalls seat. Wanted to book a box seat but there were out. But Saturday night it is then.

 

Karol

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Just now, Omen II said:

Don’t panic folks, when the Proms tickets go on sale it’s not unusual to have a queue with 7,000 people in it.  Even if you are in the queue for an hour, you’ll get there eventually.

 

That said, I booked today off work just to make sure... 

Who is panicking here? 😂

 

Karol

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GOT ONE!! Sat 2pm in the circle. Thank the fu**king force. That was stressful as hell. An hour of queueing and multiple errors and attempts. Terrible service. Should sort that website out to deal with heavier traffic.

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1 hour ago, crocodile said:

Who is panicking here? 😂

 

Karol

 

:dance:

 

I booked the day off so that I would not be panicking!

 

Incidentally Karol, if you still wanted a box seat you will probably find that more tickets become available nearer the time of the concert; many of the boxes are privately rented (people pay thousands of pounds a year for the privilege) but they do not necessarily want to attend every event, so release the box for sale to the general public.  I also think that a good stalls seat is better than a bad box seat; the view can be quite poor from some of the seats in the rear of the loggia boxes nearer to the stage, as you can have a supporting pillar in the way.

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Just attended today's Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's performance of A New Hope. I enjoyed it even more than The Force Awakens last year (which was already fantastic), perhaps because of the huge upgrade in sound quality in hearing it live compared to the original recording. I'm hardly qualified to judge, but it sounded technically very accurate, too, and I didn't hear any notes out of place even during the busiest sections. TIE Fighter Attack was as fun as I'd hoped. The worst part was having to watch some of the more egregious Special Edition 'enhancements'.

 

They're performing the Empire Strikes Back on the 15th and 16th of December (though they might well add more dates if history is any guide) - the pre-sale code is 

Spoiler

VADER

(hopefully they don't get mad if some John Williams fans get early access :)).

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Great writeup Quppa! Would be very keen to hear Empire, did they mention a venue? TFA at the Palais sounded fantastic!

 

Didn't get tickets for ANH in the end; it's not my favourite score in the series. Was the cantina music performed live? And obviously they included the tracked music from ROTJ, thanks to the awful special edition changes (just dreading the godawful music edits that Lucas approved from the Empire SE, ugh).

 

How was the pre-concert chat with the Art of the Score folks? Did they discuss TLJ much?

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5 minutes ago, crumbs said:

Great writeup Quppa! Would be very keen to hear Empire, did they mention a venue? TFA at the Palais sounded fantastic!

 

Didn't get tickets for ANH in the end; it's not my favourite score in the series. Was the cantina music performed live? And obviously they included the tracked music from ROTJ, thanks to the awful special edition changes (just dreading the godawful music edits that Lucas approved from the Empire SE, ugh).

 

How was the pre-concert chat with the Art of the Score folks? Did they discuss TLJ much?

Embarrassingly I forgot about the pre-concert talk and missed it this time around :(

 

Empire will be at MCEC (the Plenary). The Hamer Hall was good as always - the Palais might have sounded good, but it was sweltering towards the back where I was sitting for TFA. Apparently the refurbishment didn't include good air conditioning, or at least it wasn't turned on that evening...

 

The Cantina Band music wasn't played live. Jabba's theme was there for the Special Edition re-inserted scene.

 

The interval was just after the Millenium Falcon gets caught in the tractor beam (I think track 2-04 on the Special Edition soundtrack).

 

The audience gave a standing ovation after the credits (seemed like everyone in the stalls was on their feet - don't think I've seen that before, and I've been to many concerts there) and they played the Imperial March concert suite as an encore after they announced the Empire performances coming in December.

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4 minutes ago, Quppa said:

Empire will be at MCEC (the Plenary). The Hamer Hall was good as always - the Palais might have sounded good, but it was sweltering towards the back where I was sitting for TFA. Apparently the refurbishment didn't include good air conditioning, or at least it wasn't turned on that evening...

 

The Palais was very hot at the front as well; I was only 3 rows from the conductor! Great sound however, albeit biased towards the strings simply due to proximity.

 

Very cool they performed an encore for ANH (but why on earth wasn't it Princess Leia's Theme, other than the obvious tonal difference?) I guess the closest thing to an 'encore' in TFA would be the mini-Rey's Theme suite that starts Act II, but one can't complain after performing the marathon that is Jedi Steps & Finale (the ANH finale just doesn't compare, in terms of length). I'm sure Battle of Yavin must have been exhausting for the orchestra though, how did they go in the final act?

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51 minutes ago, Omen II said:

 

:dance:

 

I booked the day off so that I would not be panicking!

 

Incidentally Karol, if you still wanted a box seat you will probably find that more tickets become available nearer the time of the concert; many of the boxes are privately rented (people pay thousands of pounds a year for the privilege) but they do not necessarily want to attend every event, so release the box for sale to the general public.  I also think that a good stalls seat is better than a bad box seat; the view can be quite poor from some of the seats in the rear of the loggia boxes nearer to the stage, as you can have a supporting pillar in the way.

I know, did that with Jurassic Park and Philosopher's Stone last year. That is why it often is good to wait until quite late as you get some really excellent seats. I only book box seats in the first row. If not, I usually go with stalls as the next best alternative.

 

I am actually quite happy with the seat I managed to book. It is perfectly fine. Just not the one I would normally go with.

 

In any case, are doing some JWFan meetup or something? Seems like a perfect opportunity.

 

Karol

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41 minutes ago, crumbs said:

 

The Palais was very hot at the front as well; I was only 3 rows from the conductor! Great sound however, albeit biased towards the strings simply due to proximity.

 

Very cool they performed an encore for ANH (but why on earth wasn't it Princess Leia's Theme, other than the obvious tonal difference?) I guess the closest thing to an 'encore' in TFA would be the mini-Rey's Theme suite that starts Act II, but one can't complain after performing the marathon that is Jedi Steps & Finale (the ANH finale just doesn't compare, in terms of length). I'm sure Battle of Yavin must have been exhausting for the orchestra though, how did they go in the final act?

To my ear they did really well - just watching the strings play all those notes was exhausting :) There are surprisingly long stretches during the Battle of Yavin with no music at all, so they did have some opportunity to rest, at least.

 

The throne room scene is actually a great way to end the film when it comes to a live-to-projection concert - no dialogue and minimal sound effects means basically uninterrupted music for several minutes until the credits finish rolling. After listening to the score combined with the film audio it was nice to hear the Imperial March just by itself with no distractions (everyone sat very quietly!).

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