The Royal Festival Hall was alive with the sound of film music on Saturday evening as the inaugural London Soundtrack Festival marked its first year with a grand Gala Concert. The London Philharmonic Orchestra, under the assured baton of conductor Ben Palmer, presided over a very full programme of music from a host of composers connected with this year’s week-long festival.
Suites and themes from the big and small screen, by composers Anne Dudley (American History X), Natalie Holt (Loki), Stephen Barton (Star Trek: Picard), Harry Gregson-Willams (Gladiator II) and Hildur Guðnadottir (Tár) made up the first half of the evening. Barton himself took to the organ console for his suite of music from Star Trek: Picard , while Gregson-Williams conducted his own suite from Gladiator II with a pencil!
Alongside those works was the premiere of a new work (for an imagined film) by up and coming composer Lauren Finch and a grand suite of familiar themes from British TV quiz Shows, arranged by Iain Farrington.
The star of the evening, though, was the Oscar-winning Canadian composer Howard Shore, whose music filled the concert’s second half. The LPO has enjoyed a long-standing creative partnership with the composer, performing/recording his original scores for a great many films, from 1986’s The Fly to 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (and just about everything he did in between).
Suffice to say their performances of suites from those films, not to mention Dead Ringers, M Butterfly and Ed Wood sounded top notch. The latter, from Shore’s 1994 score for the Tim Burton film, was an absolute highlight of the evening – the brilliantly kitsch, mad-cap piece features bongos and theremin (the thrillingly unusual instrument was played by Charlie Draper up in one of the hall’s boxes, above the stage).
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Shore’s presence at the festival recognises his wonderfully eclectic career, which has taken in a run of memorable horror scores for director David Cronenberg (who was also present), through comedies like Mrs Doubtfire and Big, not to mention all of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films.
The composer’s work was not only recognised with fine performances, but also with The Gunning Inspiration Award. Named for the late British composer Christopher Gunning, it’s a new prize which will be awarded at future iterations of the festival. David Cronenberg handed Shore the trophy; indeed, theirs is a long friendship (the two met as teenagers in Toronto) and the composer was visibly moved by the honour and the concert performance.
It was certainly a high point of a busy festival week, with masterclasses, screenings and performances across London. And it continues into the coming week, continuing with a concert of great movie songs at the Roundhouse in Camden on Tuesday (25 March). Curated by festival artistic director Tommy Pearson and Oscar-winning composer Anne Dudley, it is a celebration of memorable movie tunes, performed by a host of great vocalists – including Neil Tennant (Pet Shop Boys) and Jake Shears (Scissor Sisters).
That is followed on Wednesday night (26 March) by a finale concert of music by Oscar-winning composer Hildur Guðnadottir at Queen Elizabeth Hall. Robert Ames will conduct the London Contemporary Orchestra in a programme featuring suites and themes from scores such as Tár, Joker and A Haunting in Venice.
For more information about the London Soundtrack Festival, check out the festival website.