LPO film tribute full of Oscar moments music, comedy, trivia a Technicolor delight students' artistic maturity.

Chris Waddington

New Orleans Times Picayune

Playing to a festive, near-capacity audience of 1,178, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra took the Orpheum Theater back to its origins as a vaudeville and movie house on Saturday night.

Under the direction of conductor and clarinetist Carl Topilow, the orchestra offered a delightful tour through film's "sound era," with selections that ranged from Harold Arlen's music for "The Wizard of Oz" to the epic thundering of Howard Shore's soundtrack to "Lord of the Rings."

"Evening at the Movies" was the second concert in the orchestra's pops series, which continues with the music of Frank Sinatra on March 5 and a "Tribute to American Heroes" on April 9.

Bracingly paced, Saturday's show mixed music with engaging comic turns by the conductor. Resplendent in a red silk waistcoat, bow tie and evening wear, Topilow led the audience through a movie trivia quiz and bantered with good-natured hecklers. He encouraged the audience -- and the musicians -- to let their hair down and enjoy the big sounds that only an orchestra can deliver.

Saturday's show ranged widely in mood.

It included the bombastic, comic-book evil of John Williams' "Imperial March" from "The Empire Strikes Back" and the sound of real evil, delivered in a spikily dissonant reading of Bernard Hermann's theme from "Psycho." The performance of the latter was revelatory, reminding one how much more there is to Hermann's music than the shrieking violins that mark the murderer's knife blows in the famous shower scene.

On the lighter side, the concert included a loping version of Henry Mancini's "Pink Panther" theme, during which Topilow -- and many in the audience -- snapped their fingers. Equally fun was George Gershwin's "Promenade" from "Shall We Dance": a cinematic vehicle for the dance team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Led by Topilow on clarinet, the LPO captured the comic insouciance of Gershwin's tune, with trombones plunging in comic blats and the orchestra's various sections trading crisply delineated call-and-response patterns.

At other times the music had an emotional directness that was genuinely moving. Shore's suite from "Lord of the Rings" painted scenes with some of the same coloristic effects that the orchestra brought out in its recent performance of Gustav Holst's "The Planets." The film music shifted from clanging, percussion-driven darkness, to a mood of dread sustained by shimmering strings, to a stirring melody that evoked the pleasures of peace.

True to its billing as a pops concert, the show delivered something for everyone -- and that made for some disappointments, too. Listeners with a taste for sentimental treacle got a big dose of Andrew Lloyd Webber's music from "The Phantom of the Opera."

Bruce Broughton's overture from "Silverado" disappointed in a different way. With its surging brass, clop-clopping percussion and a simple folk theme on the oboe, it never transcended the clichés of the Western genre.

Still, it wasn't the small disappointments that lingered after the show, but the joy of sharing music -- and movie memories -- with a big audience of neighbors.