Texarkana is off to hear the wizard soon when the Texarkana Symphony Orchestra presents a unique concert for the Perot Theatre: the classic film "The Wizard of Oz" with live orchestral accompaniment.
On Saturday, April 6, the TSO musicians will perform the original score to "The Wizard of Oz" while the 1939 movie is shown on a giant screen. It's movies and music with a twist.
Guest conductor Daniel Black has experience leading this sort of event, which is popular with orchestras nationwide, said the TSO executive director, Andrew Clark. Show time for this season finale is 7:30 p.m.
Black said a screen like you'd find in a movie theater will be suspended over the orchestra. "The actual film 'The Wizard of Oz' will be played from beginning to end," he said. "It's like going to see the entire movie. Rather than having the original score, we will be playing the music live."
It's popular for pops shows around the world, Black said. And he said what's particularly great with older films like "The Wizard of Oz" is that the sound recording technology back then wasn't up to today's standards.
"You've heard the songs, you've heard the music, but you haven't heard it the way it really sounds when performed live by an orchestra," Black said. "It's like having a movie that you've only seen like a grainy image and then having it digitally retouched where it's absolutely high definition. You'll get to hear this music like you've never heard it before."
Still, the original vocal tracks for songs will be played. "You'll still be hearing Judy actually singing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow,'" Black said. In this way, the TSO will be backing Judy Garland as she sang that classic decades ago.
"We'll be accompanying Judy Garland," Black said.
That famous song won an Academy Award for Best Song (Harold Arlen music, Yip Harburg lyrics), while the film also won the Academy Award for Best Original Score (Herbert Stothart).
"What you've got are sort of two different sort of musical styles fused together. You've got this sort of jazzy kind of harmony, music that was very much the dominant popular music of the '30s. That's what all these famous songs are written in. But in the background you also have this somewhat Wagnerian, almost late Romantic kind of soundtrack at times in the background-for example, in the witches theme," Black said. It makes for a "great soundscape," he said.
Clark said the TSO aimed to do something different for a pops concert this year, something more than the Broadway type of show they've done in the past. "We had a lot of patrons coming forward to us, wanting a movie," he said. "This is of course a very popular thing in symphony orchestras."
Many asked for a movie with a John Williams score, which was beyond the TSO's price range for this initial go. But in "Wizard of Oz" TSO presents a classic movie that possesses broad appeal.
"I think one of the things that appealed to our board and those that were making the artistic decisions during this year was that it was a multi-generational film that not only kids today probably know about and appreciate, but their parents, their grandparents and even their great-grandparents would have known of and appreciate," Clark said.
Also, many TSO players have performed the score before.
And for the conductor, this type of show is a particular challenge. He will have a special screen and a stopwatch, along with markings on his score. It is an intricate process.
"Because what we're trying to do live in the moment, is what normally in Hollywood they would take maybe days or weeks to do and they would record little chunks at a time and make sure it lines up exactly with the video as one little bit at a time," Black said. "What we're trying to do is accompany the entire movie beginning to end."
(Tickets: $69, $55, $35 with special pricing for children at $13 for 6-12 years old and $8 for children 5 and under. Call 903-792-4992 or visit trahc.org/perot-theatre for tickets.)