CSO Sounds and Stories<\/p>\n
By Kyle MacMillan<\/p>\n
Academy Award-nominated composer Bruce Broughton is a Hollywood mainstay, with more than a three-decade output of scores for movies such as \u201cYoung Sherlock Holmes\u201d (1985), \u201cThe Presidio\u201d (1988) and \u201cTombstone\u201d (1993). But in the early 1980s, when he got an invitation to talk with director Lawrence Kasdan about a prospective film titled \u201cSilverado,\u201d Broughton was all but unknown in the film industry.<\/p>\n
A common complaint among composers, Broughton said, is that their agent never does anything for them. \u201cWell, in this particular case, my agent did something for me. He said, \u2018There is this Western going on over at Columbia that Lawrence Kasdan is producing. It\u2019s a long shot, but [why not]?\u2019\u201d Thanks to his agent\u2019s intervention, Broughton landed a meeting with Kasdan; his brother, co-writer Mark Kasdan, and editor Carol Littleton, and they clicked. What was supposed to be a 30-minute interview lasted 1\u00bd hours, and Kasdan eventually decided to take a chance on Broughton. That decision paid off when the composer received an Academy Award nomination for his evocative, memorable music for \u201cSilverado.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra will perform the score live on May 6 alongside a screening of the 1985 film, which contains about 75 minutes of music. It will mark the world-premiere presentation of a live orchestra performance of \u201cSilverado.\u201d And it also will be the first time that one of Broughton\u2019s scores has been performed in this fashion. Broughton is thrilled about the debut. \u201cThis is a big deal,\u201d he said. \u201cI have several friends who have been doing their film scores in concert, but I haven\u2019t done it. So I\u2019m excited. I love the symphony, I love Chicago, and my wife and I are both really hot to trot for this thing. We think it\u2019s going to be a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
The presentation is part of the CSO at the Movies series, which began in 2004-05 and has become one of the orchestra\u2019s most popular offerings. Like many of the concerts in the series, it will be led by conductor Richard Kaufman, who joined MGM in 1984 and supervised music for the studio\u2019s television projects for 18 years. The CSO at the Movies series is part of an exploding international trend in which more and more symphony orchestras are presenting movie music, both as sets of excerpts, such as \u201cPixar in Concert,\u201d and screenings of complete films with the scores performed live.<\/p>\n
\u201cSilverado,\u201d which stars Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner and Danny Glover, was released at a time when the Western was in decline. John Wayne had made his final film, \u201cThe Shootist,\u201d in 1976, closing a major chapter in the history of the genre. Kasdan sought to reintroduce the Western to audiences, producing a grand take on the form, filming it in the spare desert landscape near Santa Fe, N.M. \u201cIf you look at \u2018Silverado,\u2019 it\u2019s basically the classical Western,\u201d Broughton said. \u201cIt\u2019s got a shoot-out. It\u2019s got the good guy, the bad guy, the ranchers.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the music, Kasdan wanted a \u201cbig, Hollywood, traditional Western score,\u201d and that\u2019s what Broughton set out to deliver, using Jerome Moross\u2019 score for \u201cThe Big Country\u201d (1958) and Elmer Bernstein\u2019s celebrated music for \u201cThe Magnificent Seven\u201d (1960) as his guides. The result is a sweeping, exhilarating soundtrack that pulses with classic Western flavor, yet has a distinctive sound all its own. \u201cI just went for it, and he liked it,\u201d Broughton said of Kasdan. It was nominated for an Academy Award \u2014 \u201cThat was nice,\u201d he said \u2014 but he lost to five-time Oscar winner, John Barry, and his score for \u201cOut of Africa,\u201d starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. \u201cHow can you beat a romance with those people in a plane over Africa and John Barry\u2019s big melodies?\u201d Broughton said.<\/p>\n
A good film score is one that helps advance the story and fills in an emotional dimension beyond what the acting and other elements can convey, Broughton believes. \u201cThere are a lot of good film scores that aren\u2019t particularly great music,\u201d he said, \u201cand there are a lot of film scores that have great music in it that aren\u2019t particularly great film scores.\u201d A movie composer has to be able to write music using all kinds of styles and techniques while meeting tight deadlines and exacting demands. \u201cAnd then,\u201d Broughton said, \u201cwaiting to hear the magic words from the director: \u2018Yeah, that works,\u2019 and then you move on. No one stands and applauds. No one tells you about your beautiful voicings. It\u2019s very different from doing concert music.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among the film scores that Broughton admires most is Erich Wolfgang Korngold\u2019s Oscar-winning one for \u201cThe Adventures of Robin Hood\u201d (1938). He also is a fan of 15-time Oscar nominee Alex North, especially his score for \u201cSpartacus\u201d (1960), as well as Jerry Goldsmith, who wrote the music for many classic films, including \u201cChinatown\u201d (1974) and \u201cPlanet of the Apes\u201d (1968). Among John Williams\u2019 many iconic scores, Broughton is fond of the composer\u2019s Academy Award-nominated music for \u201cThe Reivers\u201d (1969), starring Steve McQueen. \u201cI have several friends whose music I like,\u201d Broughton said. \u201cJohn Powell \u2014 I think his score for \u2018How to Train Your Dragon\u2019 is a terrific score.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CSO Sounds and Stories By Kyle MacMillan Academy Award-nominated composer Bruce Broughton is a Hollywood mainstay, with more than a three-decade output of scores for movies such as \u201cYoung Sherlock Holmes\u201d (1985), \u201cThe Presidio\u201d (1988) and \u201cTombstone\u201d (1993). But in the early 1980s, when he got an invitation to talk with director Lawrence Kasdan about … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3743"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3743"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3804,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3743\/revisions\/3804"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/3732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}