West Coast Premiere Tour Announced
The Lord of the Rings In Concert: The Fellowship of the Ring Howard Shore’s Academy Award®-winning score
performed live to film on-stage by over 200 musicians Munich Symphony Orchestra, Pacific Chorale And Phoenix Boys Choir Conducted by Ludwig Wicki
Nine-city tour October 12 –23, 2011 Starting at Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, Arizona
www.lordoftheringsinconcert.com There is only one Lord of the Rings. Come share in the power.
(Los Angeles, June 3, 2011) — A nine-city West Coast tour of the highly anticipated The Lord of the Rings In Concert: The Fellowship of the Ring will begin on October 12 at Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, Arizona. Featuring Howard Shore’s complete Academy Award® and Grammy®–winning score performed live on-stage by more than 200 musicians, the Glendale presentation of Fellowship will be followed by engagements in San Diego, Las Vegas, Anaheim, Portland, Seattle, Fresno, Oakland and Sacramento. Tickets go on sale on Friday, June 10 for all cities.
Celebrated Maestro Ludwig Wicki, the preeminent conductor of Howard Shore’s Ring music, will conduct all performances. Joining Maestro Wicki is soprano Kaitlyn Lusk, who has toured the world as a soloist in The Lord of the Rings Symphony.
Peter Jackson’s complete award-winning epic will be projected digitally on an immense 60-foot screen using an uncompressed high definition source with two 20k lumen projectors while the combined forces of the Munich Symphony Orchestra, Pacific Chorale, and Phoenix Boys Choir bring the music of Middle-earth to life.
The Lord of the Rings In Concert: The Fellowship of the Ringkicks off a three-year celebration during which each of the three Academy Award®-winning films will be performed In Concert upon the tenth anniversary of its release. The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) will tour in 2011, The Two Towers (2002) in 2012, and the grand finale, The Return of the King (2003), in 2013.
Composer Howard Shore said, “My first score for The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, was the beginning of my journey into the world of Tolkien, and I will always hold a special fondness for the music and the experience.”
Shore’s score not only captures Fellowship’s sweeping emotion, thrilling vistas and grand journeys, but also echoes the very construction of Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Styles, instruments and performers collected from around the world provide each of Tolkien’s cultures with a unique musical imprint. In operatic fashion, these musical worlds commingle, sometimes combining forces for a culminated power, other times violently clashing – and always bending to the will of the One Ring and its own ominous family of themes.
Doug Adams, author of the comprehensive book The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films and advisor to this In Concert presentation, said:
The Lord of the Ringsis a story of universal human themes and experiences, including perseverance, sacrifice, friendship, and loyalty. These were the backbone of J.R.R. Tolkien’s books, of Peter Jackson’s films, and, of course, of Howard Shore’s music.
These live performances place the score in the spotlight, and create a wholly new and unique audience experience. Even our most ardent fans are amazed at how completely Shore recreates Middle-earth in music – and how the live score provides narrative clarity, structural complexity, and above all, a living heart to the story. There’s nothing quite like it.
This is an extraordinarily moving communal experience. It’s our chance to join the Fellowship.
In 2009, over 10,000 people filled New York’s Radio City Music Hall for the American premiere of The Lord of the Rings In Concert: The Fellowship of the Ring. TheNew York Times said, “The music of Middle-earth soared through misty climes and rumbled through Hadean depths at Radio City Music Hall [as] Howard Shore’s intricate, far-reaching fabric of leitmotifs surged to the fore.” Entertainment Weekly said “it was a terrific night at the theater.”
The tour, created by Howard Shore, is produced by CAMI Music, and Alex Rabens is the producer.
ABOUT THE FILM
Released on December 18, 2001 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is the first installment of Peter Jackson’s fantasy adventure film trilogy based on the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien. A long-lost ring has been found and, through twists of fate, is in the possession of a small hobbit named Frodo Baggins.
When the Wizard, Gandalf the Grey, discovers this ring is in fact the all-powerful One Ring, Frodo must lead an epic quest to Mount Doom in order to destroy it. However he does not go alone. Frodo is joined by Gandalf, Legolas the elf, Gimli the dwarf, Aragorn, Boromir and his three hobbit friends Merry, Pippin and Samwise – the Fellowship of the Ring.
Considered one of the most ambitious projects in film history, it took eight years to bring The Lord of the Rings to the screen. The result was an artistic and popular success of the highest order. The films won a total of 17 Academy Awards®, and are among the top-grossing films of all-time.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Howard Shore (Composer)is among today’s most respected, honored, and active composers and conductors. His work with Peter Jackson on The Lord of the Rings trilogy stands as his most towering achievement to date, earning him three Academy Awards®. He has also been awarded four Grammys® and three Golden Globes. Shore was one of the original creators of Saturday Night Live serving as the music director from 1975 – 80. At the same time, he began collaborating with David Cronenberg and has scored 13 of the director’s films, including The Fly, Crash, and Naked Lunch. His original scores to Dead Ringers and Eastern Promises were eachhonoured with a Genie Award. Shore continues to distinguish himself with a wide range of projects, from Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, The Aviator, and Gangs of New York, to Ed Wood, The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, and Mrs. Doubtfire.
Shore’s music has been performed in concerts throughout the world. In 2003, Shore conducted the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in the world premiere of The Lord of the Rings Symphony in Wellington. Since then, the work has had over 140 performances by the world’s most prestigious orchestras. In 2008, Howard Shore’s opera, The Fly, had its premiere at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and at L.A. Opera. Other recent works include Fanfare for the Wanamaker Organ in Philadelphia and the piano concerto Ruin and Memory for Lang Lang premiered in Beijing, China on October 11, 2010. He is currently working on his second opera and looks forward to a return to Middle-earth with J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
Shore received the Career Achievement for Music Composition Award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures and New York Chapter’s Recording Academy Honors, ASCAP’s Henry Mancini Award and the Frederick Loewe Award. He holds honorary doctorates from Berklee College of Music and York University, he is an Officier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettresde la Franceand the recipient of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award in Canada.
Ludwig Wicki (Conductor)began his career as a member of the Lucerne Symphony and Opera Orchestra and is founder of the San Marco Brass and the Philharmonic Brass Quintet. After studying choral conducting with the music director of the renowned Dresdner Kreuzchores in Germany, Wicki became a permanent member of the Schola Romanum Luzernsis under the direction of Pater Roman Bannwart. Wicki then went on to become the music director at the Palace Chapel of Lucerne, where he led the choir in Georgian chants and performances of Bach, Handel, Monteverdi and Palestrina, as well as the orchestra in works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and more. He inaugurated a Renaissance ensemble, Il Dolcimelo, and created the concert series Treffpunkt Haydn. In 1999, he founded the 21st Century Symphony Orchestra, which has collaborated with such internationally renowned composers as Howard Shore, Randy Newman and Martin Böttcher. In 2007, the city of Lucerne presented Maestro Wicki with a Special Achievement Award for his contribution to the city’s cultural life.
The Munich Symphony Orchestrais one of Munich’s four symphony orchestras and developed in 1990 out of the former Graunke Symphony Orchestra, which was founded by Kurt Graunke in 1945. Under his direction, the orchestra quickly achieved a high standard of perfection, not only winning favor with the general public, but also being held in high esteem by experts and the media. Today the Munich Symphony Orchestra is one of the most important vehicles of culture, not only in Munich but also in all of southern Germany. For more than half a century, the orchestra has made a considerable contribution to the cultural life of Munich with an extensive repertoire, which includes symphonic concert pieces, performances of opera, light opera, musicals and ballets as well as oratories and church music. Regular concerts in Bavaria and numerous tours throughout Germany as well as through Europe, Asia and the Americas have firmly established the reputation of the Munich Symphony Orchestra.
The orchestra is also deeply involved in working with promising young soloists and conductors, thus playing an important role in boosting the careers of talented young musicians. The Munich Symphony Orchestra has also made a name for itself in relation with its successful appearances with famous soloists, for example with the performances of singers such as Lucia Aliberti, Monserrat Caballé, José Carreras, Placido Domingo, Simon Estes, Edita Gruberova, Siegfried Jerusalem, Vesselina Kasarova, Waltraud Meier, Hermann Prey, Margaret Price, and Angelika Kirchschlager.
The orchestra has provided the soundtracks for more than five hundred films, and has become one of the leading ensembles in the field of international film music. The filmThe Silence of the Lambs is the best illustration of this.
Founded in 1947, the Phoenix Boys Choir has programs featuring training in voice, music theory, and performance for boys age 7 to 14. Beginning with the Training Choir, boys can progress to Cadet, Town and Tour choirs, and upon graduation, participate in the Master’s Choir. Currently, there are approximately 150 young boys and men participating, making it one of the largest and most active boy-choirs in the U.S. One of the most prestigious awards bestowed upon the Phoenix Boys Choir to date was received in the summer of 2007 during their European concert tour. The choir participated in the Summa Cum Laude International Youth Music Festival at the renowned Musikverein in Vienna, at which it won first prize.
The Choir won a 2000 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance for their recording of Penderecki’s Credo with the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Helmuth Rilling. Credo is one of eight compact discs featuring the Choir, the most recent being Joy To The World. Tour Choirs have sung in major venues in Europe, historical cathedrals around the world, and named “Cultural Ambassadors” to the European Union; while the choir has performed with the Phoenix Symphony, Arizona Opera, Phoenix Chorale, and the Orpheus Chorus.
Kaitlyn Luskmade her major orchestral singing debut with the Baltimore Symphony in 2003 at the age of 14 and has since been sought after for solo appearances with many of the nation’s leading orchestras. Since the fall of 2004, Kaitlyn has been the featured vocal soloist in Howard Shore’s The Lord of the Rings Symphony. She has performed this role with over 25 orchestras in the United States and Canada from the Philadelphia Orchestra to the San Francisco Symphony, and from the Houston Symphony to the Minnesota Orchestra. She has performed with many conductors including Keith Lockhart, Alexander Mickelthwate, Allaistar Willis, Stuart Malina, Nicolas Palmer, and Markus Huber.
In January 2007, Kaitlyn made her European debut with Maestro John Mauceri and the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig. In the summer of 2007, as part of an encore performance of The Lord of the Rings Symphony with the Cleveland Orchestra, she once again performed with Howard Shore, who in 2005 invited Kaitlyn to perform the Academy Award®-winning song as part of the Grammy® Honors of Howard Shore in New York City. In addition to her live performances, Kaitlyn’s first studio album, No Looking Back, features some of the top musicians and songwriters in the industry today and was produced by the award-winning composer and arranger, Kim Scharnberg.
