New Jersey Symphony to Present Selections From John Williams' Scores & More

The New Jersey Symphony will present four performances of “Epic Scores of John Williams and More!,” featuring well-known and well-loved themes from the Star Wars and Harry Potter franchises as well as some of the most famous musical moments in movie history.

Award-winning songwriter, musical director, and internet content creator Brett Boles will host the performances, guiding audience members through nearly 100 years of film music history. Boles has amassed more than 380,000 followers on TikTok where he hosts the series The M Tea and reviews musical theatre tunes. Boles’ most recent musical Foreverman won the Outstanding Orchestration and the New World Stages Development award at the New York Musical Festival. Currently, Boles also serves as the Director of Choirs at Hall High School.

The performances will be Thursday, May 30, 2024, at 1:30 pm, and Friday, May 31, 2024, at 8 pm, at NJPAC in Newark; Saturday, June 1, 2024, at 8 pm, at Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank; and Sunday, June 2, 2024, at 3 pm, at State Theatre New Jersey in New Brunswick.

Music Director Xian Zhang will conduct the first half of the program and Colton Conducting Fellow Jessica Rivero Altarriba will conduct the second half. The performances kick off with Erich Korngold’s Fanfare from The King’s Row, a 1942 movie starring former President Ronald Reagan. Korngold was a prolific composer whose film scores span from the mid–1930s to the mid–1950s, and whose compositional style laid the groundwork for John Williams’ Signature Sound.

Pianist Min Kwon will join the Symphony to play Rachmaninoff’s Adagio sostenuto from his Piano Concerto No. 2, one of the composer’s best-known works that has been heard in numerous film soundtracks and featured in two Frank Sinatra songs as well as the 1975 ballad “All by Myself” from Eric Carmen.

Other memorable movie themes on the program include Prokofiev’s Suite from Lieutenant Kijé, a concert work derived from the composer’s first movie score, written in 1933; and the perennial audience favorite “The Ride of the Valkyries” from Wagner’s opera, Die Walküre. The famous theme from Die Walküre has appeared in more than 20 films, including Apocalypse Now and The Blues Brothers.

Epic Scores of John Williams and More!
New Jersey Symphony Special Concert – Symphony Celebration  

Newark → Thursday, May 30, 2024, 1:30 pm, New Jersey Performing Arts Center

Newark → Friday, May 31, 2024, 8 pm, New Jersey Performing Arts Center

Red Bank → Saturday, June 1, 2024, 8 pm, Count Basie Center for the Arts

New Brunswick → Sunday, June 2, 2024, 3 pm, State Theatre New Jersey

Xian Zhang conductor

Jessica Rivero Altarriba conductor

Brett Boles host

Min Kwon piano

New Jersey Symphony

Korngold Fanfare from The King’s Row
Prokofiev Suite from Lieutenant Kijé
Rachmaninoff Adagio sostenuto from Piano Concerto No. 2
Wagner/Hutschenruyter “The Ride of the Valkyries” from Die Walküre
John Williams “Imperial March” from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
John Williams “Hedwig’s Theme” from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
John Williams Selections from Star Wars
              “Anakin’s Theme” from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
              “Princess Leia’s Theme” from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
              “Rey’s Theme” from Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens
              “Main Title” from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

More information on concerts and tickets: njsymphony.org/events

Photo credit: Stephen Sorokoff

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