Are Live to Picture concerts killing regular film music concerts?

[Tallguy 3,389]

So last night my son says "I would like to see a concert of Star Wars music." I thought "Hey, I've seen this sort of thing before. That would be great!" Usually there will be "A Night of John Williams" or "Orchestras in Space" or "Whatever Symphony Goes to the Movies!" I got to see a rather terrific "Star Wars vs. Star Trek" program a few years ago. Williams and Goldsmith and Horner, oh my!

 

Admittedly I've just done a fairly cursory examination of what's going to be around me this year. (And yes, I realize that I just missed The Maestro Himself last year in Cleveland.) But while I'm not finding any programs with Star Wars or even just film music in my area I've found The Empire Strikes Back, Jurassic Park, and Home Alone. All to picture. All with dialog and sound effects. Boo.

 

I gather these programs have been very successful an apparently are profitable. But it seems a shame that we can't seem to at least have both.

[Jay 37,364]

I'd say definitely not.  Around here there are plenty of concerts of both types regularly >shrug<

[Smeltington 1,440]

I'm sure it has to eat into the market at least a little bit. But there have been plenty of "tribute to John Williams" type concerts in the last few years. Not sure about concerts of other film music composers though... Williams is extra special in that regard. It would be nice to see more non-Williams film music concerts as well.

[Thor 7,504]

I'd say 'yes' -- at least partially.

[Tallguy 3,389]

In this corner with YES we have THORRRRRRR! In this corner with NO we have JAYYYYYYYYY!

 

And I'm not saying that these are now the only game in town. I'm just saying that these take up a slot on the schedule that might have been used differently in the past.

 

I would imagine that the audiences would be very different. My greatest condemnation of To Picture concerts is that during the end credits people get up and walk out. (I have a sample size of ONE for this. But it was The Empire Strikes Back where you should absolutely be staying for the end credits.) So I feel that for a big chunk of the audience they aren't there for the music so much as a really expensive showing of a classic film.

 

(Why yes, I AM gatekeeping.)

[Erik Woods 555]

I don't think so. For instance, my local symphony orchestra, The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, is doing Back To The Future live to picture but they are also doing a regular film music concert earlier in their new season.

And just down the street, The Toronto Symphony is doing Superman: The Movie live to picture but they are also producing a Music of Star Wars concert.

 

-Erik-

[Tallguy 3,389]

5 minutes ago, Erik Woods said:

I don't think so. For instance, my local symphony orchestra, The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, is doing Back To The Future live to picture but they are also doing a regular film music concert earlier in their new season.

And just down the street, The Toronto Symphony is doing Superman: The Movie live to picture but they are also producing a Music of Star Wars concert.

 

-Erik-

 

Hmmm. That's on the other side of the lake...

[leeallen01 2,136]

As someone who goes to concerts at every opportunity, I haven't noticed a decline in regular Film music concerts.

 

E.g. my next two concerts are in May, one of them is called 'The music of LOTR, Game of Thrones and Beyond.' Where they perform stuff like Avatar, HTTYD, Narnia, etc. And the other is just called 'Movie Magic' where it's a selection of random film scores.

 

In fact, there are so many random concerts around me called things like 'The Best of John Williams' etc that I struggle to actually go to every one of them, and they're all within an hour drive or public transport.

 

And then on top of that you get Live to film concerts, which I also love because you hear every note written for the film.

 

 

2 hours ago, Tallguy said:

My greatest condemnation of To Picture concerts is that during the end credits people get up and walk out. (I have a sample size of ONE for this. But it was The Empire Strikes Back where you should absolutely be staying for the end credits.) So I feel that for a big chunk of the audience they aren't there for the music so much as a really expensive showing of a classic film.

 

(Why yes, I AM gatekeeping.)

 

 

Don't worry, I also hate the common scum that infect my film music concerts. And they are getting worse by the day in their ignorance and disgusting lack of manners.

 

If I were a millionaire, I would design and build my own intimate concert hall, and hire an orchestra every week to play my chosen selections...with no one in the audience but me.

 

 

Muwahahahahaha

[Fabulin 3,513]

Opera music is also predominantly presented in staged versions, not in concert form.

[crocodile 8,013]

Not that I noticed. I see regular concerts veing annouced constantly.

 

Karol

[bollemanneke 3,348]

No idea, we never had that many non-ltp concerts so I can't compare. Belgium's dose of ltp concerts is still pretty bad too.

[Marian Schedenig 8,193]

Hard to say. To an extent, I suppose. But you have to take into account several factors:

• There are many more film music concerts these days than there were 20 years ago, even if some of them are LtP now.
• There are many different kinds of film music concerts, from high profile ones like Williams does, or like the ones the LSO has long been doing with many composers, to big showy stuff like Hollywood in Vienna that's much more about the event and "big hits" than the music itself and the quality of the interpretation and performance, to stadium style concerts like Hans Zimmer's. I imagine if anything, LtP concerts are primarily replacing the showy event type concerts, and I suppose with all their downsides (edits, click tracks, amplification, distracting non-concert audiences) they are probably by and large roughly similar in quality to those concerts (which in fact often share many of these downsides anyway).