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Unearthly music invades concerts

By Kelly Jane Torrance
January 11, 2008

BSOÊPrincipal PopsÊConductor Jack Everly (here with the Indiannapolis Symphony Orchestra.

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A pairing of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and science-fiction film might seem a little out of this world. It turns out, though, that one of the country's top pops conductors might not have pursued a career as a musician if not for the unearthly genre.

BSO Principal Pops Conductor Jack Everly says he's been "terrified and fascinated" by the sci-fi genre since he saw the 1951 film "The Day the Earth Stood Still" as a child.

"Aside from that marvelous story and screenplay and the fact it was so brilliantly directed by Robert Wise, what really stuck in my memory was the music by Bernard Herrmann. It's incredibly evocative. It's a subliminal effect it has on you," the maestro says. "His style of composition is definitely unique. He gets under the surface of what it is he's writing the music for."

Mr. Everly says it's one of the things that inspired him to become a conductor.

He'll bring Mr. Herrmann's score to life next week with the BSO SuperPops' Sci-Fi Spectacular, along with some other favorites of the small and big screens. Mr. Herrmann may have inspired the young Mr. Everly, but it's living composer John Williams who dominates the program, which includes pieces from his scores for "Star Wars," "Superman," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

Mr. Williams, who served for a time as the Boston Pops' principal conductor, is the master of sci-fi soundtracks, but Mr. Everly says his influence goes far beyond that. The BSO conductor declares that the second golden age of Hollywood film music began in the 1970s, and he attributes much of it to Mr. Williams, who, he says, "brought back to Hollywood and the world at large a symphonic sensibility after the 1960s came at us."

It just so happened that like-minded directors like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were making sci-fi films — like "Star Wars," which Mr. Everly calls a "sci-fi opera" — in the 1970s and 1980s. Mr. Everly sees this as a happy coincidence. "You could do anything you wanted, since we don't know what symphonic music in space sounds like," he says, adding with a laugh: "We do now, thanks to John."

Mr. Everly has also done some musical work himself for the evening. He's arranged a medley of theme songs from sci-fi television series called "Lost in Syndication." It includes music from "The Twilight Zone," "The X-Files," "The Jetsons," and "Lost in Space."

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