Growing up in Southern California, it’s only natural that Emil de Cou would gravitate toward movies. And while his career turned to music rather than the silver screen, the National Symphony Orchestra’s summer conductor found a way to marry his two passions.
Mr. de Cou in 2000 started the NSO’s summer movie concert series, in which the ensemble plays the score of a film as it is projected onto a screen at Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia. Last summer saw the conductor lead the NSO through performances of Alan Silvestri’s “Back to the Future” and Michael Giacchino’s “Star Trek” (2009) scores. Both writers were present to hear the orchestra perform their respective music.
“That was a trip for me, growing up in Los Angeles and having these two great men in film be there just by happenstance,” Mr. de Cou told The Washington Times. “We never really had that before.”
Mr. de Cou, whose animated, rapid speech is frequently punctuated by laughter, has led ensembles from Philadelphia to San Francisco. But he never forgot his Hollywood roots, or his love of the cinema and its soundtrack.
This summer’s orchestra “synchronization” series includes the 1981 classic “Raiders of the Lost Ark” Saturday in honor of the 35th anniversary of Indiana Jones’ first adventure. “Star Trek Into Darkness” will follow on July 30. However, Mr. Giacchino, who is busy putting the finishing touches on the next journey to the final frontier, “Star Trek Beyond,” will be unable to attend.
“His family is from the D.C. area. I had him speak to the orchestra,” Mr. de Cou said of Mr. Giacchino’s attendance last summer. “Which is unusual because most of our composers have been dead for 200 years, and we had a living one. And he said to them it was so special growing up hearing the [NSO] playing on the West Lawn of the Capitol. So we had him here for the concert and the rehearsal, which is helpful to me.”
Mr. de Cou recalled that the affable Mr. Giacchino had little in the way of advice for the ensemble.
“He had the enthusiasm of a big kid,” Mr. de Cou said with a laugh. “He said to these accomplished people from Julliard and Curtis, ’Why don’t you just go out and have fun?’”
Mr. de Cou counts Bernard Hermann and John Williams among his favorite film composers, and considers film music to be “America’s greatest contribution to the art of music.”
“If you’re in Germany, if you’re rehearsing Beethoven or Mozart, you have to rehearse what music sounded like” at the time of its composition, he said. “And [the NSO] doesn’t need to rehearse if we play Giacchino or Hermann, because it’s our music. So we start with several hours already accomplished.
“Americans sometimes feel less than Europeans” in terms of musical culture, he said. “When it comes to film music, this is us. This is our style.”
He had worked previously with “Raiders” composer Mr. Williams, and said that even though his professional players have performed for some of the preeminent musical minds in the world, only Mr. Williams, the legendary composer of “Jaws,” “Star Wars” and “E.T.,” turned them into giggling fans.
“They’re some of the most accomplished musicians in the country, but when John Williams was there that week, they became like a bunch of kids,” Mr. de Cou said with yet another chuckle.
Mr. Williams scored all four of Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones films, as well as more than a dozen of his other films, a relationship Mr. de Cou calls “the greatest pairing of a director and his composer.” Mr. Williams, 84, who is busy with the new “Star Wars” films, will be unable to attend the “Raiders” show Saturday evening.
“I think [Mr. Williams’ music] just bypasses the intellect and goes right to your heart and imagination,” Mr. de Cou said. “John Williams has an amazing gift.”
He related how Mr. Williams apparently couldn’t get his score to sync properly with an early cut of “E.T.” Mr. Spielberg told the composer to write the music and he would recut the film to sync with the score.
“That never happens,” Mr. de Cou said.
Mr. de Cou maintains that this summer’s Wolf Trap attendees not only will get to hear a live movie soundtrack — an impossibility at home or the cinema — but also will take in a performance by one of the country’s premier orchestras.
“You get such a cross-section of America getting to see a great movie and hear great music played by a great orchestra,” he said. “They’ve come to an orchestra concert without even realizing it.
“My first passion was film, and I got caught up by classical music when I was a teenager. Now I’m back, and I’m just so happy.”
• Eric Althoff can be reached at twt@washingtontimes.com.
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