From the Podium:

Carl Johnson - Music Director & Conductor

"DMCO At The Movies"

The Des Moines Community Orchestra is pleased to present its fall concert featuring music by two of Hollywood's most admired composers, Bernard Herrmann and John Williams. We have titled the concert "DMCO at the Movies." This free concert will be Sunday, November 4, 2007, at Drake's Sheslow Auditorium. Our concerts this year will begin at 2:00 p.m., an hour earlier than in past years. I will present a pre-concert talk at 1:00 p.m. in Levitt Hall, the reception room above the auditorium in Old Main. 

The first half of our concert will feature music from film scores by Bernard Herrmann, who is most famously associated with Alfred Hitchcock. We will begin our concert with music from his first Hollywood score. Herrmann was the music director for Orson Welles' The Mercury Theatre on the Air radio program, and came with Welles to Hollywood for the making of the classic film, Citizen Kane, of 1941. 

In 1955, Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry featured the first collaboration with Herrmann as the composer of one of the director's film scores. The composer took music from this "black comedy" and created a piece he titled A Portrait of Hitch as a light-hearted tribute to the director. At the end, Herrmann inserts a brief quote from Citizen Kane for solo bassoon as a tongue-in-cheek reminder of his first film score. 

Herrmann's best-known (and most often imitated) score is probably the one he did for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho in 1960. Anyone who has seen the film will be able to instantly call to mind visual images upon hearing this music. Written for a string orchestra, the tension created by the music reflected perfectly that of the film. 

We will close the first half of our concert with a suite from Vertigo of 1958. The music to this film is dreamlike and passionate, again reflecting perfectly the mood created in Hitchcock's vision of the story. Vertigo, dizziness caused by a fear of heights, which plays an important part in the film (on several levels), is fully realized in the score. 

The second half of our concert will be devoted entirely to music by John Williams from the 1977 film Star Wars. Williams is one of the most honored composers in film history, including the Academy Award he won for this score. 

I am certain that you will find much for all ages to enjoy on this concert; and the orchestra looks forward to presenting it. We do appreciate your support, and we hope that you will be able to attend.

Sincerely,

Carl Johnson - Music Director and Conductor