Organ pipes and unique ceiling design of the Concert Hall,
Sydney Opera House, for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra "Star Trek" event.
This was a great event!
Because I'd made an unsuccessful attempt to secure seats for that big World Premiere of JJ Abrams' "Star Trek" movie earlier in the year, I now receive regular emails from the Sydney Opera House for its other events. It was with great interest that I was notified of the chance to pre-order tickets for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra's concert playing selections from the soundtracks of all eleven "Star Trek" movies, plus "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Transformers" and Holst's "Mars, the Bringer of War" from "The Planets" Suite.
Footage from "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (the trip through Vejur), "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (the starship battle in the nebula), "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country", and images from the Hubble Space Telescope "StarGaze" DVD, accompanied "2001" and "Mars".
A big screen showed appropriate Trek movie scenes (compiled by Daniel Saw of Active Media) to accompany each piece, and very humorous, snappy introductions from the conductor, Guy Noble. The ST material was after the intermission, and that's when Noble came out on stage in his command gold Starfleet shirt - the design from the new movie!
When acknowledging the capacity crowd, he said he suspected there were some "Star Trek" fans in the audience. Well, I did shout "Yay!" at that point, and I was in the front row (only because the choir was sitting in my originally booked box seats), but Mr Noble then pointed at me and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, there's a man down here wearing pointed rubber Spock ears..."
I fully anticipated his next line: "Oh no, they're his own ears."
Well, I was considering wearing the full Andorian get-up...
The "Star Trek" movie themes, the main part of the program, included: "The Enterprise" from ST:TMP; "Main Title" of "ST II: The Wrath of Khan"; "Stealing the Enterprise" from "ST III: The Search for Spock"; "End Credits" from "ST IV: The Voyage Home", "ST V: The Final Frontier" and "ST VI: The Undiscovered Country"; "Overture" from "Generations"; "End Credits" from "First Contact" and "Insurrection"; "A New Ending" from "Nemesis" and "End Titles" from the 2009 "Star Trek" movie.
Remember that little, quirky/shimmery, musical sound in the ST II soundtrack, as the opening credits make way for the "In the 23rd century..." caption? The SSO included this sound at the beginning of their "ST II Main Title" section. At the next break, the conductor asked the audience if they'd noticed what instrument was used. No one reacted much (and my vision had been obscured by my proximity to the raised stage. They asked the musician to demonstrate... his piece of flexible, white, plastic pipe, which had been bought from a local hardware store! (I have plenty of it in my swimming pool, running the air through to my automatic pool cleaner.)
There was also a handsome collectible program, featuring synopses of each ST movie and some great photographs and trivia. Then, as we were leaving, a friend noticed these in the Opera House gift shop:
Collectible coins struck to celebrate the World Premiere
of JJ Abrams "Star Trek" movie at the Sydney Opera House.
(7th April 2009)
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4 comments:
"Stealing the Enterprise" is easily one of my favorite pieces of Trek music. It's a total BS drama moment in the film, but James Horner saves it in the score.
Hi De,
What made this concert so interesting was that the specially-edited footage from the movies was newly-matched to the music selections. Watching the trip through V'ger to the music from "2001", and the death and regeneration of Spock to "Stealing the Enterprise" (ST III), were... fascinating moments.
Hey, how much were the commemorative coins? Wish I knew about them when I was in Sydney a couple of weeks ago.
$20 each! Very cool!
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