Basil Poledouris: The Music and The Movies filled Walt Disney Concert Hall with the Los Angeles Film Orchestra, SoCal Chorale, guest conductors, collaborators, and members of the Poledouris family. Produced by Robert Townson, the evening was both a career survey and a gathering of people connected to the music.
A concert hall changes a film score's center of gravity. Music once synchronized to cuts and dialogue becomes the complete focus, and the audience can hear the physical labor and fine detail inside familiar moments. For Poledouris, that means the weight of percussion, the grain of low brass, the lift of a broad melody, and the human scale of the quieter passages.
More than the expected landmarks
The value of a broad tribute lies in placing the celebrated epics beside lyrical, comic, and intimate music. That fuller frame resists reducing a varied career to a single sound and allows relationships between very different scores to emerge.
Robert Townson's concert archive includes extensive photographs and program material. SoundTrackFest also published a detailed account of the evening.