& STARS OF STAGE SCREEN
‘Goosebumps and tears are not optional’ when La La Land gets a live soundtrack courtesy of the Orchestre Métropolitain and a jazz ensemble
If you’re a little fuzzy on the concept behind the jazz fest event La La Land in Concert, you’re excused. I was too.
I figured it was going to be a musical tribute to the Oscarwinning film about star-crossed lovers in Hollywood, along the lines of the L.A. troupe For the Record’s tributes to filmmakers Quentin Tarantino and Baz Luhrmann at the 2014 and 2015 jazz festivals, respectively. Those concerts didn’t involve any clips from the films, but rather recreated scenes from the movies, featured performances of some of the films’ songs and even included songs inspired by the films.
But La La Land in Concert is a different beast altogether. Sunday at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier of Place des Arts, the fest will screen the film in its entirety, and all of the music from composer Justin Hurwitz will be performed live by the Orchestre Métropolitain and a jazz ensemble. You will hear the voices of stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone when they’re singing in the film.
And all the musicians will have to improvise, conductor Erik Ochsner underlined in a phone interview this week from the Vienna airport.
Ochsner was on his way home to New York City, briefly, after La La Land concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg. This event had its world première over two nights at the Hollywood Bowl in late May, and Ochsner will be on the road for much of the next year with the show as it touches down in the U.K., Mexico, Italy, Turkey and Switzerland, along with a slew of dates across the U.S. There are around 75 performances currently on the schedule.
But Ochsner is particularly pumped to be bringing this film/ live-music hybrid concept to the Montreal International Jazz Festival.
“What an amazing opportunity to have the Montreal jazz festival do this show,” he said. “Now we’re cooking with grease. This is going to be an amazing set of players playing with us. So I’m really excited.”
Because jazz and improvisation play such important roles in the film and the show, he thinks it’s cool to be doing it with a happening orchestra and a bunch of jazz musicians hand-picked by the fest.
There will be about 80 musicians on stage. Most will be from the Orchestre Métropolitain, but there will also be a jazz group including trumpet, trombone, guitar, electric bass, drums, and, of course, the main soloist will be the pianist.
“It’s unique that we’re asking people to improvise live on the stage,” said Ochsner. “Will it sound 100 per cent like the CD you can go out and buy? No, because they’re not the same jazz players and jazz players never play the same notes two days in a row.”
Ochsner has spent years conducting orchestras playing along to films, including shows built around Back to the Future, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Frozen, The Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean. He figures the concept is a great way to attract people to the world of live orchestras.
“I did the Disney musical Frozen in an arena in Poland with 10,000 screaming children in costume who were singing along, and the whole show was done in Polish,” he said. “That was a hoot.”
Ochsner comes from a straighter classical background, but has always had a taste for the pops material.
“I still love my requiems, I still love my operas that I work on, but I think this is a great crossover opportunity, to bring audience members in. So many people love film music, but do they really realize the film music is being played by a symphony orchestra? There’s still this lack of music education for so many people. Maybe someone is not going to buy a ticket to Carmina Burana, but when they hear it they’re going to go, ‘Oh my god, I love that — that’s so cool.’ The way that we recognize classical music has certainly changed over the years.”
For Ochsner, at the end of the day these musical film events are about one thing only: eliciting an emotional reaction.
“I’ve always instructed orchestras, ‘Goosebumps and tears are not optional.’ After our performances in Moscow yesterday, someone said they saw at least 100 people walking out with tears in their eyes. So we succeeded. We moved people, and that’s what film music really can do.
“In this multi-tasking world, some people don’t feel comfortable sitting at a concert listening to a symphony. So certainly film music is an easier way (to listen to an orchestra) because you can follow along with the imagery and the storyline from the film.”