Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in Concert by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

14–16 DECEMBER 2018

CONCERT PROGRAM

#msostarwars

@MelbSymphony

@melbournesymphonyorchestra

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Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox present Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) Mark Hamill Harrison Ford Carrie Fisher Peter Cushing Alec Guinness Anthony Daniels Music by John Williams Cinematography Dan Mindel Produced and directed by George Lucas

This concert has a duration of 2 hours and 30 minutes, including 20-minute interval More than 100 dedicated musicians make up your orchestra. Meet the talented artists of the MSO at mso.com.au/orchestra The MSO’s performances of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in Concert are proudly supported by our Major Partner, CVP.

Star Wars — Film Concert Series is produced under license by Disney Concerts in association with 20th Century Fox and Warner/Chappell Music. STAR WARS and related properties are trademarks and/or copyrights, in the United States and other countries, of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates. © & TM Lucasfilm Ltd. ©2018 & TM LUCASFILM LTD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©Disney.

NICHOLAS BUC CONDUCTOR Nicholas Buc is a composer, conductor, arranger, violinist and pianist. He studied Composition at the University of Melbourne, where he received the inaugural Fellowship of Australian Composers Award. As the recipient of the Brian May Scholarship for Australian film composers, he completed a master’s degree in Scoring for Film and Multimedia at New York University, receiving the Elmer Bernstein Award for Film Scoring. His film and television work has screened at festivals and theatres around Australia, Asia and the US. Continuing his passion for music and film, he conducted the live-in-concert world premieres of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Beauty and the Beast. Other live film concerts he has conducted include Back to the Future, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Psycho, Star Wars: Episodes IV, V, VI and VII and the first three Harry Potter films. He has conducted all of the major Australian symphony orchestras and makes regular conducting appearances in the US and Asia. He is currently finishing up writing the new musical TROT, with lyricist Gordon Lindsay, based on Dickens’ David Copperfield. He also recently completed a new ballet score, Kazka, which Lehenda Ukrainian Dance Company toured throughout Australia, Canada and the US.

JOHN WILLIAMS COMPOSER In a career spanning more than five decades, John Williams has become one of America’s most accomplished composers for film and the concert stage, and remains one of its most distinguished musical voices. He has composed the music and served as music director for more than one hundred films, including eight Star Wars films, the first three Harry Potter films, Superman, JFK, Far and Away, Home Alone and The Book Thief. His 45-year artistic partnership with director Steven Spielberg has resulted in many of Hollywood’s most acclaimed and successful films, including Schindler’s List, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the Indiana Jones films, Saving Private Ryan, The Adventures of Tintin, Lincoln, and The Post. His contributions to television music include scores for more than 200 television films, as well as themes for NBC Nightly News (“The Mission”), NBC’s Meet the Press, and the PBS arts showcase Great Performances. He also composed themes for the 1984, 1988, and 1996 Summer Olympic Games, and the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. He has received five Academy Awards and fifty-one Oscar nominations, making him the Academy’s most-nominated living person and the second-most nominated person in the history of the Oscars.

He has received seven British Academy Awards (BAFTA), twenty-four Grammys, four Golden Globes, five Emmys, and numerous gold and platinum records. He received the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors in December of 2004. In 2009, Mr. Williams was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and received the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists by the U.S. Government. In 2016, he received the 44th Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute – the first time in their history that this honour was bestowed upon a composer. In January 1980, Mr. Williams was named music director of the Boston Pops Orchestra, succeeding the legendary Arthur Fiedler, and assumed the title of Laureate Conductor following his retirement in 1993. Mr. Williams has composed numerous works for the concert stage, among them two symphonies, and concertos commissioned by leading orchestras, including a cello concerto for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a bassoon concerto for the New York Philharmonic, and a horn concerto for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 2009, Mr. Williams composed and arranged “Air and Simple Gifts” for the inaugural ceremony of President Barack Obama, and in September 2009, the Boston Symphony premiered a new concerto for harp and orchestra entitled “On Willows and Birches”.

In consideration of your fellow patrons, the MSO thanks you for dimming the lighting on your mobile phone. The MSO acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which we are performing. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present, and the Elders from other communities who may be in attendance.

mso.com.au (03) 9929 9600

8–9 NOVEMBER 2019 Plenary, MCEC

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