Music of note

Now ‘House of Cards’ is an orchestral extravaganza.

Last July at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., composer Jeff Beal and a 72-piece orchestra staged a musical salute to a couple’s murderous quest for power in the White House. The couple are fake — it was congressman turned president Frank Underwood (played by actor Kevin Spacey) and his wife, Claire (Robin Wright), from Netflix’s hit drama “House of Cards” — but the evening felt plenty real to Beal, the Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning man behind every sobering and chilling note on the “House of Cards” soundtrack.

“The room wasn’t filled with politicians — that would have been weirder — but actors and true fans of the show,” Beal says by phone of that concert, performed with the National Symphony Orchestra. “What makes a drama work is you can suspend disbelief, but right now the real world feels even stranger than our fictional one. Especially now.”

Beal will deliver a reprise of that show, “House of Cards in Concert,” on Thursday at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami. The University of Miami’s Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra, under Beal’s baton, will perform whilefootage from the first four “House of Cards” is projected over the stage.

On his way to Miami, Beal chats about his concert.

What makes the “House of Cards” classical score a natural fit for the stage?

It was actually a dream of mine to create a concert where you play the score live to picture. I started adapting it during Season 3. Being a jazz trumpet player, I love the way that this show deals in a film noirish mode using the American language of jazz in film scores. It feels sophisticated and sexy, and it looks backward to American musical traditions.

You’ve written and composed more “House of Cards” compositions than can fit in one concert. How did you decide what made the cut?

For the show, usually you score the music to the footage. I did it in reverse. I wanted the narrative arc to have a beginning, middle and an end, so I start by introducing the characters and beats with thematic symphonic suites.

At what point in the season do you start writing the score?

I do it all from my home studio [in Agoura Hills, Calif.], and we can fit up to 25 musicians at a time. One of the biggest struggles about post-production is it happens on a quick time frame. Right now, I’m finishing up episodes 8 and 9 right now of Season 5. I won’t start composing until the episodes come in, and then I look for placement, an element of surprise.

Did the age of the audience in Washington surprise you?

Definitely. We brought in a lot of young people. We think of these traditions in symphony and how they attract older people. Now, look at the relevance of TV music. I feel like a bit of an evangelist. By introducing the amazing power of a symphony orchestra by way of TV scores, people realize how wonderful classical can sound. “House of Cards in Concert,” 8 p.m. Thursday, at Adrienne Arsht Center, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. Admission is $25-$95.

KENNEDY CENTER/COURTESY “House of Cards” concert was first performed at the Kennedy Center in D.C.