By Glen Falkenstein
“Everybody goes to films, and we’ve all grown up with films, so therefore we’ve all grown up listening to classical music that most of us would claim that they know nothing or next to nothing about,” Richard Tognetti tells FilmInk. Beautiful classical music is at the heart of Cinemusica, a bold collaboration between two of Australia’s longest standing musical forces: The Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) and Synergy Percussion, who will bring some of the most iconic film scores in cinema history to the concert platform in a national concert tour with dates in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney. “This is a momentous occasion,” says Tognetti in the Cinemusica press release. “This programme challenges the audience to think about the way music arises from its sources. You have Hollywood film composers Thomas Newman and Bernard Herrmann alongside 20th century European giants like Iannis Xenakis and Bela Bartok – all with different approaches to the compositional process, but all delivering music that is ripe for visual realisation.”
The ACO last collaborated with Timothy Constable on Timeline in 2014, a visual and sonic journey through the history of music, which was a sell-out hit. “I am really looking forward to this concert,” says Constable of Cinemusica. “It’s an absolute kaleidoscope of wonderful sounds. Richard and I tabled some of our mutual favourite composers, and this beautiful filmic musical journey started to coalesce. From the intimate, fragile, crystalline stories by Thomas Newman, to the epic blockbuster narratives of Iannis Xenakis, and Bela Bartok’s staggering masterwork of brilliant technique and emotive force, the possibilities with this combination are just endless. It will be such a joy to share the stage with the brilliant and hugely creative ACO.”
And for Richard Tognetti, it’s all about breaking down the barriers that exits around classical music. “All of the music that we’re presenting is music that you would have heard in the films that you’ve seen,” Tognetti tells FilmInk. “This music actually means much more to you than you think, and to take it out of its natural habitat is really interesting. When you hear the music from Psycho, you’ll own it, and you’ll know exactly what the scene is. Whether it’s the shower scene or driving to Norman Bates’ motel, the music will trigger your musical imagination. When it’s used in film, classical music becomes something else entirely. You know much more about it in an emotional way than you think because you’ve heard it since you were a kid in films. It’s interesting the subtle manipulations that music can play with the mind, so I thought that it would be interesting to play music to manipulate an audience…in a positive way! Think of Bernard Hermann’s Psycho suite, or a more elliptical work like American Beauty, and then in a way where people have heard music but aren’t aware of it, such as in The Shining where Kubrick used Bela Bartok.”
Cinemusica will be touring through Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, and Adelaide. For all venue and ticketing information, head to www.aco.com.au.
