The Lord of the Rings Symphony at the Prague Spring Festival
Following the opening concert of the Prague Spring International Music Festival, another important evening awaits the PRSO during this renowned festival: it will perform as part of the Prague Spring's Popular Series Howard Shore's The Lord of the Rings Symphony at the Prague Congress Centre on Thursday 28 May. The composer of the musical accompaniment to the bestselling film series The Lord of the Rings has arranged themes known to film audiences around the world into a full-length concert programme opulently scored for orchestra and chorus, which sings in Tolkien's invented languages as well as in English. The conductor is Marcus Huber and the performers include the soprano Ann De Renais, the Prague Philharmonic Choir (choirmaster Lukáš Vasilek) and the Prague Philharmonic Children's Choir (choirmaster Jiří Chvála).
Howard Shore won three Academy Awards for his music for The Lord of the Rings trilogy. After four years of work he adapted his film music, in collaboration with the conductor John Mauceri, into a series of musical poems. Each of the six movements corresponds to one of Tolkien's books. At Shore's request the music is accompanied by sequences of images. The Lord of the Rings Symphony had its world premiere on 29 November 2003 in Wellington in New Zealand, where it was conducted by Howard Shore. Since then it has been performed more than 140 times. Shore has conducted the symphony with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall, with the Cleveland Orchestra at the Severance Hall, with the Russian National Philharmonic Orchestra at the Kremlin and with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.
