Hull City Hall recently hosted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for a night celebrating the film music of composer John Williams in the latest of a string of concerts in collaboration with the world renowned orchestra. The sold out concert which is one of the key events of the first season of the City of Culture year was full of highly recognisable tunes from beginning to end. Conducting such classics as the themes from Star Wars, E.T., Jurassic Park and more, was US born composer Robert Ziegler one of the most prolific and versatile conductors working today. Robert has conducted many of the major orchestra’s in the world and worked on films and contemporary music as well as with the Royal Philharmonic on numerous occasions including for this John Williams tour. I spoke to him as he prepared for the show on Thursday 2nd February.
Have you been to Hull before?
I’ve never been to Hull before no.
First impressions?
It was difficult to park! I mean I haven’t really seen much of the city but there’s an awful lot going on during the Capital of Culture, which is great! We’re looking forward to the crowd tonight.
With it being City of Culture, meaning there will be a wide range of art forms to be on display, what would you say is a good starting point for people wanting to get into classical music?
Well this concert’s sold out but this concert is really one of the best starting points – if you just want to hear an orchestra and you don’t quite know what you want to hear. I always tell this story – we did this concert in Northampton and I came out and there was a biker standing at the stage door, and he said ‘I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed the concert tonight, I came last year to the season and I thought that the sound of the orchestra was great but I had no connection with it. And then I saw that you were doing this and I knew these films…’ And this is really great orchestral music; you get to hear the orchestra at their best really. And he said ‘that’s what really made it for me that I had some sort of contact and that you all played so brilliantly’. And then he roared off on his Harley. I thought that sums up exactly one of the things this concert can do if you don’t know about what they call classical music. I prefer to just call it orchestral music because there’s so much of it and so much of it now is written for films. I do a lot of work in films, original film scores but also this thing where we play live the soundtrack to a film that they screen; we’ve done that with Planet of the Apes and Taxi Driver in 2001 and things like that. The reason people don’t just sit at home and watch the DVD is because they love that live experience.
Are you working on any films at the moment?
Just worked on a film with a Japanese composer and I’m probably going to be working on a couple more. But not right now as I’m busy with the Royal Philharmonic. But I’ve worked with quite a few film composers recently.
What relevance does orchestral/classical music have to a younger generation now?
Music is about feeling, and the feeling you get from an orchestra is a really extraordinary one. It differs from pop music because it usually has more of a narrative to it, a symphony or a concerto or something like that. You need to familiarise yourself with it a little bit but initially people are drawn to it because of the sound, because of the sensual feeling they get. It’s like the internet, this is our wireless connection [points to ears], everybody hears. Music is one of the things that can bring people together. Whether you’re young or old; I have three kids, they come to my concerts. All you have to do is keep an open mind. A concert like tonight is great because it’s solid excitement from beginning to end. No piece lasts more than six minutes so it’s more like a set of songs rather than a half hour slab of symphony. I’ve worked a lot with pop artists or jazz artists too who want to expand what they do. And they love the sound of the orchestra because they usually just have a band or whatever in the studio. The chance to get an orchestra in, gives them a whole new world to experiment with. So yeah, just listen!
What’s your favourite place that you’ve played in?
The Albert Hall is great when it’s full. We’ve done this concert twice there and both times it’s been full. I think any place when it’s full is pretty exciting! [Laughs]. So tonight is full too so it’ll be a lot of fun.
What’s your favourite piece by John Williams?
People keep asking me this, I’ve got a big stack of scores here and each one, when you read them, are so well written for the orchestra and they do what they do so precisely. Harry Potter is pretty extraordinary as is Jaws and Schindler’s List is an amazing bit of very intimate film music. The flying theme from E.T.; it does what it says, it really takes off. And then you get to the end of the concert and we hit the main title from Star Wars, and well, what can you say? [laughs]. I can’t have a favourite!
In that case, what’s your favourite film with John Williams music in?
Oh golly, no one’s asked me that question before. I don’t know, I have a feeling E.T. is one of the best ones because the music is such an integral part of that. You always find, especially in the Spielberg films that the music becomes another character, and it interprets the film just like any other character would. Another one I love is Catch Me If You Can – wonderful jazzy score. People don’t realise that John Williams started out as Johnny Williams the pianist; he was more of a Jazzer. I think that’s about as close as I can come to that answer.
Tim Goodfellow 