I have a few posts that I never got around publishing and have been glaring at me every time I go to write something. Since I can’t think of anything particularly interesting to say, I’ll polish off one and call it good.
Interestingly, the concert was one year ago tonight exactly. Weird.
My family had the distinct pleasure to go see the San Diego Symphony last night during a special performance of John Williams‘ music conducted by the man himself. I have had a great appreciation of his music since my childhood after seeing Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark (and on and on) so it was a real treat to experience his music performed live while the man who created it, led. He covered much of what he is known for and to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a little tired of hearing them. That is true for most well known performers so why not composers, too.
During a set of pieces from Harry Potter, he did something that I thought was very decent and a sign of how genuine he really is. The piece "Nimbus 2000" is performed by a woodwind ensemble which was seated right in front of his stand. He started them off and then simply stepped down and watched them perform. I thought that act showed sincere trust in the performers and an appreciation of their performance. I do believe that he wanted to make sure everyone could see them as well.
Another interesting part was when they performed the chase sequence from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He first showed the sequence (the one with River Phoenix as a young Indy running from some poachers on a circus train) on a screen above the stage with only the dialog and sound effects. He then played the sequence again with the musicians playing the scored music. It was a nice experience for people to see how the process of scoring a movie works.
In many respects it was the symphonic version of a rock concert. They did three encores (Memoirs of a Geisha, Olympic Spirit, and Raiders of the Lost Ark) which, in my fairly limited experience of concert going, was a first. All-in-all, I was very happy to see my musical idol in the flesh (well, tuxedo) and feel it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.