Arts Alive San Antonio

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor –

Conductor Scott Terrell has seen The Wizard of Oz more than 100 times!

“I can quote every word and I can be any of the characters,” said Terrel, the immediate past music director of the Lexington Philharmonic, and this weekend’s guest conductor for the San Antonio Symphony (SAS).

He likes the movie alright but the real reason for seeing it so many times has to do with his work. Terrell has established himself as a leading movie-concert conductor who will lead the orchestra in playing Wizard’s score Dec. 13-14, while the movie itself is being shown simultaneously on a screen placed above the stage.

Terrell began exploring the collaboration between film and live orchestra a while back, starting with the classic Casablanca, he said, but got more into it in the past 6-7 years. Since then, he has worked on a number of such projects, including Wizard, Jurassic Park, Home Alone, Star Wars, and Nightmare Before Christmas, which he also performed with SAS a couple of years ago.

“I do like doing it. Film-concerts now make up 30-40 percent if what I do,” explained the conductor. “The music in so many of these movies is glorious. It’s another character in the film.  In the 1930s and 40s, a lot of European-trained composers came to the U.S. and brought to Hollywood the tradition of composing for a story. Composers like John Williams, learned from them. They all wrote so beautifully for an orchestra: Bernstein for West Side Story, Herrmann for North by Northwest and Psycho; even Aaron Copeland wrote film music, for Of Mice and Men. The music contributes to people’s memories of those movies.”

But for a conductor it’s a bit of a challenge. Since films have parts when dialog is not accompanied by music, the orchestra must remain silent during those segments while the conductor must stay vigilant and ready to signal to the players when to reengage. Usually, there’s some kind of monitor on the podium – for Terrell it’s a simple clock this time – that helps him synchronize the images with the playing. That’s also why it helps to know the movie inside out as he does.

The San Antonio Symphony has had a longish history of including film-concerts in its repertoire. According to the manager of artistic planning, Katie Brill, the first such project was Alexander Nevsky in 1989, an ideal film for this purpose, given that the music was composed by none other than Sergei Prokofiev, and the story focused on the legendary, larger-than-life Russian hero, Prince Alexander Nevsky.

After that, however, SAS did not return to movie-associated projects until 1996. Eventually, some Pops concerts started featuring film excerpts, wrote Brill in an email, and in 2007, The Wizard of Oz graced the screen while the orchestra played the score. In the past few years, SAS has embraced the new trend whole-heartedly, with regular “films with live orchestra” events each season, Including Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Star Wars, Harry Potter and others.

Brill is involved with every step of the process of bringing such an event to the audience, from being part of the staff group choosing the movies, to overseeing the technical demands, picking the conductor and signing contracts. All of these concerts take place at the Majestic Theater.

As to why this has become a trend adopted by so many professional orchestras in the U.S., Terrell is very straightforward: “They bring in new audiences,” he said. “When we did Star Wars with my orchestra, it became the single best- selling event in the history of the organization. A lot of people in the audience were new to us. These collaborations attract all age groups. Films can do that.”

And they can make people laugh right during the performance, not a usual occurrence at typical classical concerts. “It is a different genre of experience altogether,” said Terrell.

So, do musicians enjoy it?

“The music in some of the movies is surprising challenging to play, “noted Brill. “John Williams’ scores, for instance, sound easy but they are very much not. I think musicians enjoy being challenged in a different way. They always rise to the occasion.”

It is interesting to note that both SAS and The Wizard of Oz are 80 years old.  What a great way to mark a joint anniversary!

Concerts: 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Majestic Theater, 224 E. Houston St., tickets are $28-$57 at box office or through ticketmaster.com