Harry Potter in Fort Myers: Watch movie 'Sorcerer's Stone' with live music from SWFL Symphony
With all those blazing wands and flying cars, rampaging basilisks and fire-breathing dragons, Harry Potter fans often don’t pay much attention to the music in the Harry Potter movies. They're too distracted by the magic and the spectacle onscreen.
But they should pay more attention to the music, John Beal says.
Because it’s awesome.
“It’s very rousing,” the symphonic conductor says. “But there is some really wonderful, dark and mysterious stuff in there. … It’s pretty exciting!”
Now Beal and the Southwest Florida Symphony are putting that music front and center — literally. The professional orchestra will sit onstage Saturday in front of a giant, high-definition movie screen, and they'll perform the soundtrack to “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” live as the 2001 movie plays behind them.
The concert shows how important music can be for generating emotion and excitement on the silver screen.
“I think it’s nice for the audience to see how the music is produced,” says violinist Kathleen Beard, a longtime fan of the Harry Potter movies. “You get to see what goes into it.”
“Sorcerer’s Stone” — like most Hollywood movies — simply wouldn’t be the same without its music.
“If you actually take the music out of the movie, it’s never going to be as good,” Beard says. “It just isn’t.”
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And this music is better than most, she says. It was written by legendary Hollywood composer John Williams.
“It’s just brilliant music,” Beard says. “There’s that feeling of magic to it.”
But playing that rousing score can be tough, Beard admits. This will be her second time performing the movie’s soundtrack live. She previously performed it with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra.
“It’s a lot of fun,” she says. “But it’s very tiring — especially for the violins, who have more notes than anybody.
“And we’re doing it twice in one day. The musicians are going to be tired after that. That’s a full-length movie, twice in one day.”
Beal agrees that the score is harder for the violins than everybody else. “The pages are just BLACK with notes for the violin,” he says. “But every section of that orchestra has very difficult passages to play. It’s very exhausting.”
This isn’t Beal’s first time, either. He’s conducted the music for the first two Harry Potter movies in concert several times, and hopes to do more of them, too. The show is part of the touring Harry Potter Film Concert Series.
“This is absolutely one of the most fun things I’ve ever done,” Beal says. “The orchestra loves it, and the audiences are fully engaged.”
It’s not easy syncing a live orchestra to a pre-recorded movie, Beal admits. But it can be done. He'll conduct the show while watching the movie on a computer screen, with vertical lines and other markers to let him know when to start bouncing his baton.
Of course, nobody would want to watch the concert if "Sorcerer's Stone" wasn’t any good. But, luckily, that’s not a problem with this movie by director Chris Columbus, Beal says.
That first movie set the tone for all the Harry Potter movies that followed, with its wizards and monsters, its Boy Who Lived and its evil Lord Voldemort, its Hogwarts school and its Quidditch matches, and so much more.
“It’s an engaging world that Harry Potter lives in,” Beal says. “The characters are so exciting. Everything is so much fun to watch.
"And, of course, John Williams is unbelievable.”
Connect with this reporter: Charles Runnells (Facebook), @charlesrunnells (Twitter), @crunnells1 (Instagram)
If you go
What: Music from “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”
When: 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Barbara B Mann Performing Arts Hall, 13350 FSW Parkway, south Fort Myers
Tickets: $57-$93
Info: 481-4849 or bbmannpah.com