Oscar at 90

Producer
February 28, 2018
 / 
Walt Disney Concert Hall

I had the privilege of working with the Music Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to produce The Oscar Concert, a one-night celebration of film music held at Walt Disney Concert Hall on February 28, 2018, marking the Academy Awards’ 90th anniversary. In collaboration with the LA Phil, the concert explored the history of film scoring through curated performances conducted by Thomas Wilkins.

The program featured classic film scores organized into thematic suites, each accompanied by montages spanning nine decades of cinema.

  • The Sound of Home (Rachel Portman, Nino Rota, A.R. Rahman)
  • The Sound of the Chase (Dave Grusin, Lalo Schifrin, Jerry Goldsmith)
  • The Sound of Fear (Mica Levi, Quincy Jones, John Carpenter, John Williams)
  • The Sound of Love (Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Luis Bacalov, Tan Dun)
  • The Sound of Courage (Terence Blanchard, Joe Hisaishi, Alex North)

The evening culminated with world premiere suites of all five 2018 Original Score nominees: Dunkirk (Hans Zimmer), Phantom Thread (Jonny Greenwood), The Shape of Water (Alexandre Desplat), Star Wars: The Last Jedi (John Williams), and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Carter Burwell) conducted by the nominated composers themselves.

Notable guests included directors Guillermo del Toro, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Rian Johnson, and Ava Duvernay.

Press Links

"An Oscar Concert For The Ages"
Giacchino told me they were able to put the whole thing together in just a couple of months, starting shortly before Oscar nominations were announced. “It’s what we do,” he said, while also throwing a lot of the credit to his sister Maria, who runs his touring shows. “Still I wish we had some more time.” He didn’t need it. It would be hard to imagine how it could be improved upon, especially with the superlative sound in Disney Hall.
- Pete Hammond, Deadline, 03/02/2018
"The Oscar Concert: Exploring Love, Fear And Fish People Through Music"
The concert progressed into five collections of scores, each spotlighting a different emotional motif: “The Sound of Home,” “The Sound of Love,” “The Sound of Fear,” “The Sound of the Chase,” and “The Sound of Courage.” Each segment aimed to unify seemingly vastly different stories with music. It was an interesting case study to mesh three songs from films with very little in common, over clips from a plethora of other films which also don’t have a whole lot in common, and somehow still piece together a moving, cohesive narrative.
- Megan Ranger, Blurred Culture,