South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Zimmer taking film scores on road
Associated Press
For generations, German composer Hans Zimmer’s scores have soundtracked magic movie moments in “The Lion King,” “Gladiator,” the “Dark Knight” trilogy and, most recently, “Dune” and “Dune: Part Two.” Now Zimmer is bringing his scores to the live stage.
His “Hans Zimmer Live” tour, which sold out in Europe, will make its way to the U.S. and Canada this fall, marking the first time Zimmer has performed in North America in seven years. The last time was a 2017 Coachella performance.
During a recent interview, Zimmer said he was inspired after “refusing to get onto a stage for 40 years” because of something his friends — the Smiths’ Johnny Marr and Pharrell Williams — told him.
“You have to look your audience in the eye. You can’t hide behind the screen forever. You know, you owe it to your, you know, audience,” he says they told him. And after Coachella, he realized: “I can do this.”
Having done the run in Europe, “we’re at the top of our game at the moment,” he says of his orchestra.
Don’t expect a traditional, classical music setting. At “Hans Zimmer Live,” there is no conductor, no sheet music and not a single frame from the films he’s referencing.
“I come from rock ’n’ roll and I believe in putting on a show,” he says. “People stay with us because we give them an experience which they’ve never had before . ... Life is hard. Life is tough these days. And people worked hard to go to pay for these tickets, so we better pull off a show that is absolutely worthy of them coming and seeing us.”
“Hans Zimmer Live” kicks off Sept. 6 in Georgia and will stop in 17 cities across the U.S. and Canada. Zimmer says attendees can expect a diverse audience.
“I’ve looked out at the audience and there’s a mom with her grandson sitting next to a guy with a mohawk, sitting next to a man in a business suit, sitting next to another bunch of, you know, bikers,” he says. “So, it’s not just multigenerational, it’s multicultural.”
“Hans Zimmer Live” includes works from “Gladiator,” “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “The Dark Knight,” “Interstellar,” “The Lion King,” “The Last Samurai” and “Dune.”
“Each one of those movies is painted in color and affected by what is going on around us. And they have all been extraordinary journeys,” he says.
The films and their scores are vastly different, but Zimmer’s idiosyncratic approach and arrangements should be considered the connective tissue. That, and a certain je ne sais quoi that makes an effective — and affecting — score.
“You need to be committed. You need to be honest. You can’t be sentimental,” he says of a successful score. “The other thing is, it’s the people who are performing it. Because if you think about it, the last actors that really get hired, the last actors that perform in a movie, are the musicians. So, I’m very careful about picking the people I work with.”
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