Photograph by Samantha Dittmann
Dolphins leap from ocean waves to snare airborne minnows in their jaws. Strange denizens of the murky deep pucker their prehistoric fish lips before a mouthful of plankton. Stoic whales glide past with a nearly subsonic rumble. It’s The Blue Planet, a particularly dramatic documentary on our undersea friends, and this fall it becomes The Blue Planet Live! when shown on a large screen at Powell Hall, accompanied by the mighty Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra (September 19 and 20, slso.org).
Symphony resident conductor Ward Stare is the man responsible for joining the orchestra, the George Fenton score, and the BBC/Discovery Channel film into a seamless multimedia immersion. It’s a task made easier by a sweeping, majestic score and thrilling footage of whales breaching, sharks attacking, and so on. “We’ll try to bring out our inner orchestral aquarium,” jokes Stare. “The screen is enormous,” he adds, “so you should feel like you’re underwater with the creatures.”
Playing along with films adds a new wrinkle for the symphony, says Stare. “There’s no margin for error with a film that’s a finished product that you’re putting music to,” he explains. “But we’ve been doing some live accompaniment to movies recently, with Wizard of Oz and Lord of the Rings. This is the first time we’ve accompanied sharks, dolphins, and coral reefs, though. And for me personally, this will be the first time I’ve ever conducted a live orchestra with a film, so that’s going to change my approach. I have to learn the film as well as the music.”
Fortunately, he says, he’s a “total Discovery Channel junkie.” “Animals always fascinate me,” he adds. “I’ve always had a real love of the water and the ocean. I’m a certified scuba diver, in fact. There’s so much of our planet that is ocean, and so much that’s still undiscovered. In some ways, we know less about the ocean than we do about outer space. It’s always been a source of mystery, wonder, and fascination for me.”
The mystery for the rest of us is how the symphony plays such a diversity of material with such amazing precision, with precious little rehearsal for each piece. “We only get together once or twice to rehearse [The Blue Planet Live!],” he says, “so it comes together pretty quickly once the whole orchestra’s there. It’s a great orchestra, you know?”
