Saginaw Bay Symphony Journeys Into the Musical & Visual Stratosphere with STAR TREK 2: The Future Begins

Having launched a stellar series of innovative and dynamic presentations that have reached high into the musical stratosphere, the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra will be closing out their 88^th Concert Season on Saturday April 27^th so audiences can boldly go where no one has gone before by taking them on a musical and visual excursion whereby they can experience J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek film The Future Begins, with the orchestra performing the highly charged film score composed by Michael Giacchino in a live concert setting that is faithfully synchronized to the film. 

Given that the title of their 88^th season is ‘A Journey Through Time and Space’, according to SBSO conductor and musical director Fouad Fakhouri, “For our season opener we performed Gustav Holst’s “The Planets that was synchronized to actual NASA photography and video that was shot deep in space, so for our final (closing) concert we will be performing the music to the 2009 movie Star Trek: The Future Begins. As you recall that was that the reboot of the Star Trek movie series with Chris Pine starring as Admiral James T. Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Spock. In designing the season, I thought it would be interesting to open and close with dramatic concerts that focus on the theme of “space”. 

“Michael Giacchino wrote a dynamic and very interesting score that captured the essence of the TV series and the previous 1970’s and 1980’s movies starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, so I felt this particular Star Trek would be the perfect one to close out what was has been a very successful and encouraging season for us.”

When asked about some of the challenges involved with performing this film score live in conjunction with the movie, which while common in the era of silent films is relatively unheard of in this modern age of film scores being blended with dialogue, Fakhouri says the most significant challenge when performing a live movie score that accompanies a projected film is timing.  “The music must be in complete sync with the projected movie,” he reflects. “Any slight deviation will be apparent to all audience members.  For me conducting the score and syncing it to the live movie is an extremely exciting endeavor requiring complete and extended focus and attention.”

“Most people do not realize that there are very few moments/scenes in any current Hollywood blockbuster movie that do not have music,” he continues.  “This movie is no exception. We will be performing music throughout the movie just as you would hear it and see it at any movie theatre. The few moments where there is no music, the audience will listen to the dialogue and the orchestra will sit silently waiting for its next entrance.”

When asked what is about Giacchino’s musical score to this film that he feels distinguishes it from other film scores in the Star Trek series, Fakhouri says that because this one was the reboot for the original movie series, his score captures the essence of both the original 1960s TV series as well as the movies that were shot in the 1970s and ‘80s. “This score is epic and harkens back to the great Hollywood film scores of the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s, plus this score requires a full orchestra with an extremely large percussion section, including some very interesting and exotic instruments, which is not unusual for these types of Hollywood blockbuster movies.”

“This will also be our first foray into this type of project where the SBSO performs a live film score as a Hollywood movie is being projected on screen,” concludes Fakhouri, “so I am looking forward to presenting it to our audiences and hope to be able to bring other future exciting projects,”

“You never know - the original Star Wars or Harry Potter might be next!”

The Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Star Trek (2009): The Future Begins starts at 8:00 PM at Saginaw’s historic Temple Theatre, which is located at 201 N. Washington Ave. in Downtown Saginaw. Tickets can be purchased by phoning 989.754.7469 or by visiting templetheatre.com. Tickets start at $24.00 plus processing fees.