Ask any classical musician: Playing Mozart is tough. It requires a combination of accuracy, virtuosity, sensitivity, balance and myriad other qualities working together to make something devilishly difficult seem effortless.
Now imagine you’re performing Mozart live at the Hollywood Bowl in front of thousands. But it’s not just a concert. You’re part of a massive ensemble accompanying a showing of “Amadeus,” director Miloš Forman’s celebrated 1984 film about Mozart. You’re presenting the original film score live — cueing exactly to the action, observing all the sudden starts and stops, sometimes in mid-phrase.
That’s the daunting task that Orange County’s Pacific Chorale will tackle on Aug. 23. Under the direction of their artistic director, Robert Istad, Chorale members will learn the choral parts, then combine forces with members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic to accompany the Oscar-winning film while it’s being shown on a giant screen, a collaboration that comes on the heels of winning a Grammy this year for Best Chorale Performance with the L.A. Phil. The score is predominantly Mozart’s compositions, and the centerpiece of the movie, both musically and dramatically, focuses on the mysterious circumstances surrounding the commission and composition of Mozart’s only requiem mass.
The challenges of accompanying a film in which music plays a seminal role are immense, Istad said.
