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When: 8 p.m. Saturday.
Where: Holland Performing Arts Center, 1200 Douglas St.
Tickets: $10 to $65; call 345-0606.
For his next concert, Thomas Wilkins will boldly go where every sci-fi junky in America has gone before.
Wilkins will lead the Omaha Symphony in “A Space Odyssey,” a multimedia concert at the Holland Performing Arts Center on Saturday night. The concert, part of the orchestra's new “Sights and Sounds” series, will feature the ensemble performing to video from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“Orchestras often accompany films, but this time the video will be accompanying the orchestra,” Wilkins said. “The stunning visuals complement what the orchestra will be playing.”
The concert will be divided into two parts. During the first half, the orchestra will play music from popular sci-fi television programs and movies, such as “Star Trek,” “Star Wars” and “ET.”
John Williams, the composer for “Stars Wars” and “E.T.,” is today's undisputed master of extraterrestrial music. Many of Williams' space-based pieces, however, were heavily influenced by Gustav Holst's “The Planets,” which the orchestra will play during the second half.
First performed in 1918, “The Planets” is an essay in orchestral showmanship. The work consists of seven movements, each corresponding to one of the planets –– Holst was inadvertently ahead of his time in not counting Pluto as a planet.
Although Holst has influenced most Hollywood sci-fi composers, he approached “The Planets” as a mythological piece, not a celestial one. The planets in this work take their names and personalities from the gods of ancient Rome.
“Mars,” the opening movement, is subtitled “The Bringer of War,” and it clearly foreshadows Darth Vader's march in “The Empire Strikes Back.” “Venus” is “The Bringer of Peace.” “Jupiter,” the movement that usually makes the biggest impression on audiences, is “The Bringer of Jollity.”
“People are going to love the video we have to go with ‘The Planets,'” Wilkins said. “The visuals are beautifully choreographed to the music.”
Contact the writer:
444-1076, john.pitcher@owh.com
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