Going the Distance: Seeing "Rocky" in Concert

A Saturday evening in Chicago offered moviegoers many current releases and limited showings of Top Gun films. The largest single crowd attended a Rocky screening at the Auditorium Theatre in the Loop. About 1,540 fans watched the film in a live-to-picture format while the Chicago Philharmonic performed Bill Conti’s Oscar-nominated score. The experience included piano-driven early music and the rousing “Gonna Fly Now” during the training sequence. Live music and cinema have been paired for more than a century due to early projection noise and the lack of recorded audio tracks, leading theaters to hire organists, pianists, or full orchestras. Later examples include live-to-projection performances of The Lord of the Rings with Howard Shore’s music.

"Some 1,540 fans flocked to the Auditorium Theatre in the Loop for a "live-to-picture" screening, with the Chicago Philharmonic performing Bill Conti 's iconic, Oscar-nominated score. I saw "Rocky" twice at the River Oaks Theatre in Calumet City in the winter of 1976-1977, and I've watched it somewhere around a million-trillion times on TV over the years, but this was my first time seeing it with an audience in nearly five decades. It was also my first time ever seeing it with a live orchestra providing the musical accompaniment, from the melancholy, piano-driven sounds of the early scenes to the rousing "Gonna Fly Now" during the world-famous training sequence."

"Live music and cinema have co-starred together for more than a century-a move borne in part out of practical necessity. Early 35mm projectors produced loud, grating mechanical clatter, and with no recorded audio track for films of the 1910s and well into the 1920s, organists, pianists, or even entire orchestras were brought in. Movie palaces such as the Mark Strand Theatre on Broadway, the Million Dollar Theatre in Los Angeles (built by Sid Grauman), and the Chicago Theatre on State Street in Chicago featured full orchestral accompaniment."

"Cut to the early 2000s and the Live-to-Projection concerts of "The Lord of the Rings" movies, with orchestras in cities around the world performing Howard Shore's music to the films in the original trilogy. Over the last decade, the live-to-picture event has"

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