Hartford Symphony Orchestra adds live musical power to movies, video game scores

Lights, cameras, action and a full symphony orchestra. In recent years, the Hartford Symphony Orchestra has gone multimedia playing along to films, videos and other projections.

At the most recent concert in its Masterworks series, the orchestra did an extraordinary thing, stretching its film accompaniment prowess to a new level. The concert had a dance theme. When the orchestra played Strauss’ “On the Beautiful Blue Danube” waltz, two professional dancers waltzed back and forth, so close to the violin section that someone could have tripped them. The orchestra also did Leonard Bernstein’s “Fancy Free,” written as a ballet (and later the thematic inspiration for the musical “On the Town”).

The Bernstein work was the one part of the concert that didn’t get any added visual effects, but it didn’t need any. “Fancy Free” is featured prominently in the recent Bernstein film bio “Maestro,” and it was easy to close your eyes and imagine sailors skittering across the stage.

But the key section of this Masterworks program was its novel approach to the Aaron Copland classic “Appalachian Spring.” The piece is one of Copland’s most popular, infused by the immortal Shaker melody “Simple Gifts.” What the Hartford Symphony did was take it back to its roots and add a fresh visual dimension. The orchestra made a strong choice to play the piece as it was originally arranged for a 13-piece chamber orchestra rather than the full orchestra treatment it usually gets. An even bigger choice was to play “Appalachian Spring” alongside a 1958 film version of the ballet it was originally composed to accompany. The video, made for public television, starred legendary dancer Martha Graham, who had commissioned and choreographed “Appalachian Spring.”

You didn’t know where to look. There was the rare film of the great Graham and other modern dance stars of the mid-20th century on the screen. There was the fine-tuned small ensemble playing the soaring “Appalachian Spring” in a manner you seldom get to hear live.

In the pre-concert talk she gives before each Masterworks performance, Hartford Symphony Orchestra music director Carolyn Kuan, who conducted this concert, talked about how difficult it was to synch the live orchestral score to a filmed ballet. First, she explained how crucial Graham had been to the piece’s creation. Copland’s score had the working title “Ballet for Martha.” She wouldn’t let the composer see her choreography in rehearsals, and she even named it “Appalachian Spring.”

As for performing alongside a 65-year-old black-and-white TV version of a finely tuned modern dance piece filmed at multiple angles, Kuan said. “This has never been done. I have no idea how it’s going to go today!”

The performance had special challenges, yet also unique delights. In the ballet, the dancers sometimes move against, rather than with, the rhythms of the score, making it particularly hard to play live. There are highly specific movements like hopping, whisking or sweeping arm gestures that are impossible for musicians to catch exactly. The ensemble fell slightly out of sync with the film a few times, but it scarcely mattered. This was a fascinating exercise on many levels. Usually, when we see a dance piece with live musical accompaniment, it’s the dancers who command the most attention. Here, with a group of live musicians in a special small formation onstage playing with such energy and emotion, the film behind them seemed secondary. It was a fresh way of hearing and feeling Copland’s score more than it was a soundtrack to a dance.

The Hartford Symphony Orchestra is used to such new expressions. Last season it played “Stonewall ‘69” by Iain Bell. It was the premiere of a new orchestral suite based on Bell’s opera of the same name, and a special video was created by artist Yuki Izumihara to accompany the suite. The previous Masterworks season featured another video-enhanced premiere of Clarice Assad’s “É Gol!,” which also included some audience participation elements of clapping and shouting that gave it an even grander live multi-media feel.

Such presentations may sound gimmicky, but the Hartford Symphony is now so well-versed in doing them that they don’t seem forced or phony. They have gotten very good at introducing other elements into the concerts without distracting from the central power of a large, sweet-sounding symphony orchestra.

This is even the case, as we’ll see in the coming weeks, when the symphony is accompanying one of the most popular fantasy movie series of all time or performing compositions associated with the fast-paced graphics of a video game.

On March 23 at 7:30 p.m. in The Bushnell’s Mortensen Hall, the Hartford Symphony Orchestra will perform “Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy.” The concert will be conducted by Arnie Roth as part of the orchestra’s Pops! Series and also features live vocals from the University of Hartford’s Hartt Choir.

The music score from the video game series Final Fantasy has earned international acclaim, and live renditions of it have been seen on concert stages for years, separate from the intense isolated gameplaying they’re associated with. Many composers have contributed to the series, but the most revered melodies are the work of Nobuo Uematsu, who’s responsible for its most popular song, “One Winged Angel.”

In Connecticut, video game music concerts have generally come to smaller stages such as Infinity Hall in Hartford or the Space Ballroom in Hamden. This one fills The Bushnell’s main Mortensen Hall. A special high-definition video presentation from Square Enix, which produces the Final Fantasy games, is part of the concert, which draws from the entire 35-plus years that Final Fantasy has been around.

Less than a month after the “Distant Worlds” concert, the orchestra is at it again. On April 20 at 1 and 7 p.m., the Hartford Symphony Orchestra will perform the latest of its live accompaniments of Harry Potter films. They have presented the concerts over the years in the order that the films were made. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” is the sixth film in the series with just two more remaining.

The popularity of the Harry Potter concerts is undeniable. While the orchestra’s regular Masterworks concerts get three performances each in The Bushnell’s 900-seat Belding Theater, April’s Harry Potter concert has two performances on the same day in the venue’s 2,800-seat main Mortensen Hall. That’s twice as many seats available.

Just a few years ago, having a symphony orchestra accompany a film or a video was still a novelty. Now it’s commonplace. The comedy “Elf” even got the symphony treatment over the holidays. It’s no longer about it being special and different, it’s about how well a certain orchestra can handle it. The Hartford Symphony Orchestra has shown with its Masterworks experiments that it’s not just capable of adding oomph and vitality to a film score, it’s at the forefront of merging classical music with video imagery.

Hartford Symphony Orchestra performs “Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy” on March 23 at 7 p.m. at Mortensen Hall in The Bushnell, 166 Capitol Ave., Hartford. $45-$88. The orchestra accompanies “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” on April 20 at 1 and 7 p.m. $39-$120. hartfordsymphony.org.