2026-03-31 Raiders in Concert

 REPOST FROM:

2026-03-31 Raiders in Concert

Brother mine: That soundtrack represents everything we got into music for in the first place. [Takes a drink.]

On Saturday, Alissa and I went to see the Madison Symphony Orchestra perform the score for Raiders of the Lost Ark in sync with the film itself on a large screen suspended over the orchesta. The conductor, Kyle Knox, stood facing the orchesta and the screen, but he also had his own small screen positioned just above his score. That screen showed timing cues and other information he needed to keep in sync with the action.

Knox gave a 30-minute talk before the show to a small crowd of interested ticket holders about John Williams and his place in cinema score history. He also talked a lot about leitmotifs. It was a good little lecture, with examples.

Out in the lobby there was a small display about archeology in Wisconsin with a couple of experts there to answer questions. There were Native American artifacts like arrowheads and a video about an ancient canoe found at the bottom of lake Mendota, archeological dig tools, and a real field notebook. You know I enjoyed thumbing throught that.

Many concertgoers were wearing their idea of Indiana Jones-style fedoras and leather jackets. None of them were even close. I wore my normal fedora, but I checked it with my coat. I wasn’t going to wear a hat in concert hall! What kind of uncouth nerd would do that?

I was wearing my Alden Indy boots, though. Only I and Alissa knew how cool I was.

I didn’t bring my whip.

The performance was thrilling. Many was the time I forgot there was a live orchestra there. But I brought my opera glasses so I could get a close look at the percussion section, with the snares, bass drums, timpani, triangles, bells, chimes, tamborines, and especially the slap-stick, which they repeatedly percussed while Toht’s face melted off his skull. Music to my ears.

There were some noticable flubs, especially in the horns and some of the more difficult flute and reed parts. That is to be expected. It wasn’t the London Symphony, and they only had 24 hours to rehearse. But it sure was fun to watch the strings pizzicato through the tarantula scene and the trumpets blaring out the Raiders theme!

You would have loved it, Rob. Vale.

------

Brother mine,
I'm sure I would have loved it.
I assume they mixed the music out and left the other sound in the film playback (sfx, dialogue, foley, all that) but have to ask: was the orchestra mixed in higher then in the cinematic version? (not super important, just curious)

Wow, what a super tough score to play. I can imagine there were some flubs.
When I listen to the truck chase scene, I think: "oh those poor French horns"
and "those glorious trumpet solos!"
One day of rehearsal for that would positively terrify me as a musician.

I'm listening to the the OST as I type this and between this and Williams' 1977 score for Star Wars, yeah, this is the music that first fully introduced to us the magical, transformative, evocative, life-changing power that music holds. All the music we fell in love with since then sort of followed through that opened gateway, didn't it?
John Williams has a lot to answer for. ;)

I've seen a ton of interviews with modern working film composers from obscure to household names and they all bend a knee when talking about Williams, for good reason. Zimmer is critical of the space opera approach, but he still respects Williams.
I used to teach a course called Music on Screen and I always did two full sessions (4 hours) on Williams alone. He's perfect for introducing things like orchestration, thematic development, scene transition, leitmotif, and his work dovetails beautifully with Wagner, Mahler, and Erich Korngold who laid a lot of the groundwork for film music as we know it today. The students at that time mostly knew his music from the first Harry Potter film, and everyone knows the Darth Vader theme. :) Showing them scenes from Star Wars, Superman, JFK, Jurassic Park, Lincoln, and even the Olympic fanfares, it's easy to get swept up in his music.

The archaeology display thing sounds like it was a nice touch. I wonder how many archeologists today were originally drawn in by this film? Honestly, if I had chosen a path in the sciences, that would have been a tempting option.
Was that part of Sylvia's way into her studies?

as ever,
your brother and fight choreographer who always got killed by your Indy in the movies we made in the basement