I love movies and movie scores. It’s been ten years since La La Land captivated moviegoers with a modern movie musical, an art form all too rare in today’s world. It was nostalgic then, in a charming way, and that feeling hasn’t faded. Now coming soon to Cincinnati Music Hall — Sept. 5 and 6, to be precise — is a performance of the movie’s score by the Cincinnati Pops accompanying a big-screen projection of the 20th-century fairy tale about two aspiring artists — an actress (played by Emma Stone) and a jazz pianist (Ryan Gosling) — who have a romance then go their separate but successful ways.
Damon Gupton, the Pops’ veteran principal guest conductor, will match his musical leadership skills with a “click-track” to enable the orchestra to stand in for the movie’s original soundtrack. (He knows the movie well: Gupton is also an actor, and he had a small role in the 2016 movie!) For the concert performance, Gosling’s jazz piano performances will be covered by Julie Spangler, the Pops’ regular pianist, a virtuoso in her own right.
I recently wrote about this exciting program for the Cincinnati Business Courier. Here is the opening to my “Arts Front” feature from the business weekly’s August 21 issue.
CINCINNATI POPS ENTICES NEW AUDIENCES WITH “LA LA LAND,” OTHER FILM CONCERTS
Robert McGrath, president and CEO of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, which also performs as the Cincinnati Pops, strives to make the 131-year-old classical music organization “the most relevant orchestra in America.” Growing attendance at Cincinnati Music Hall is a goal of a series of ongoing offerings designed to attract Gen X and millennial audiences. For more than a decade, part of that strategy has been to present classic movies accompanied by live performances from the Cincinnati Pops, the moniker that carries orchestra’s Broadway music, jazz scores and popular songs.
The 2026-2027 Pops Season kicks off Sept. 5-6 by screening the 2016 film “La La Land.” The melodic score of this modern musical will be provided by the orchestra, led by Pops Principal Guest Conductor Damon Gupton. The film’s memorable opening moments portray a Los Angeles freeway traffic jam with frustrated motorists dancing on their stalled cars. The award-winning movie, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, is the story of a promising pianist and an aspiring actress whose Hollywood careers cross paths. They fall in and out of love. “City of Stars” won the Academy Award for best song, and the film took home five more Oscars. Many critics call it one of “the best movie musicals of all time.”
According to Felecia Tchen Kanney, the CSO’s chief marketing and communications officer, “Film concerts are one of the clearest examples of how audience expectations around live entertainment have evolved. People increasingly want experiences that are social, familiar and memorable, and these concerts meet audiences where they are without compromising artistic experience.”
Ticket buyers might be enticed by a well-known title, she said, “but they’re actually experiencing a top-tier orchestra performing one of the most important elements of the film in real time. It’s often a first encounter with live orchestra music, and it has a way of changing people’s expectations about what an orchestra can be.” Roughly 35% of attendees at these film concerts are new to the CSO. The two most recent seasons have welcomed more than 5,000 new concertgoers.
If you’re a subscriber to the Business Courier, here’s a link to the full story.
I’m looking forward to this performance. How about you?