April 25, 2009 2:00 pm & 7:30 pm
Great Hall, GBPAC, Cedar Falls
Oz with Orchestra presents a magnificent projection of the classic American film alongside the entire Harold Arlen score performed live. An unprecedented opportunity to experience The Wizard of Oz in true surround sound. And for the orchestra, a rare chance to 'accompany' Judy Garland.
Related post – Orchestra in Technicolor [slideshow]
Related post – So what did YOU think?
Related post – Previewing Oz [audio]
Photos – The Wizard of Oz
Symphony shines in Oz performance
By Melody Parker
Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier
April 30, 2009
After last weekend's stellar Oz With Orchestra double-feature performances at the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center, audiences should now realize there's ‘no place like home’ for hearing an incredible orchestra. Like Dorothy, I rediscovered, again, that we have the finest orchestra in Iowa ‘in our own backyard.’
The spring Pops concert featured the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra, conducted by music director Jason Weinberger, performing the score to the full-length, digitally remastered classic, ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ The movie was projected on a cinema-sized screen above the Great Hall stage, and all the singing and dialogue was intact. When the lights went down, and the MGM lion roared on the screen and the music swelled, the audience gave a loud and collective ‘ooh .…’ And when the orchestra sounded its final notes, the audience was on its feet cheering and clapping. Musicians stomped their feel in approval when Weinberger returned for a second bow and acknowledgement of the orchestra's fine playing.
Attending the matinee was a wonderful way to experience the childlike wonder of ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ I've only seen the movie on television, and it was fun to be surrounded by kids whose feet never touched the floor. Their excitement was contagious and, like the rest of us, they were enthralled by the music and movie. I didn’t hear a single parent threaten a fidgety child with ‘Don't make me get the flying monkeys.’
This event engaged both visual and aural senses and left them tingling. It was a concert in living Technicolor, full of color and fun. Timing was everything to carry it off, and Weinberger used an analog clock to keep the orchestra cued to the film. What a wonderful Wiz he was, conducting the players with a masterly combination of vigor and subtlety. The orchestra was, quite simply, phenomenal. The orchestra's virtuosic playing with Judy Garland singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ was one of the great moments, but there were wonderful ‘little’ moments, too, like the swirling cyclone music, the March of the Winkies and solos by the Tin Man, Cowardly Lion and Scarecrow. Harold Arlen's lush orchestration, considered one of the greatest movie scores of all time, and frequent changes in tempo - I lost count of the changes in the Munchkinland scenes - must have been challenging and tiring for the musicians. Their energy never flagged.
Pops concerts are a wonderful venue for attracting new [and younger] audiences to the symphony. One can hope that it won't take a pair of ruby red slippers to bring those same people out for a classical concert or two.
Note: All reviews are edited for length and spelling.