Magically Musical

Film, live orchestra make for enchanting event

Film, music, a live concert, sitting on a blanket under the stars, Harry Potter — each of these things has its own special magic attached to the experience of taking it in. For the second year in a row, CineConcerts, the Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion and members of the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas roll them all into one for an enchanting evening of entertainment.

“It’s a great way to see a movie. To hear the music being played live, that’s a kind of a visceral effect, which you can’t get just going to the movie theater. It’s an exciting sound to hear 80 to 100 musicians making this sound and being part of the story,” shares conductor Constantine Kitsopoulos.

No stranger to integrating music and storytelling, Kitsopoulos’ impressive resume has seen him all over the country conducting musical theater — including Broadway — and celebrated operas in addition to his symphonic work. Oct. 13 finds the conductor on the stage at the Walmart AMP in Rogers where “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” the second in the film series, will be projected onto a huge screen set behind a stage of musicians while they perform the score live.

“It’s a magical, magical story and when you’re watching, you start to make connections [between the films] in the story, but also [in] the scores,” Kitsopoulos shares. “There are certain musical themes that appear in every one of the films, and as the story develops, those themes develop and are treated in different ways harmonically and so on. So you get a feeling for, let’s say, how the character of Harry Potter’s matured over those years.”

Another of Kitsopoulos’s favorite parts of the CineConcerts shows, he reveals, is their interactive nature — further demonstrating how the event is the perfect gateway to symphonic music for families. Audience members are encouraged to dress up, cheer their houses and favorite characters, “boo” the villains and be a part of the experience.