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For over a decade now, movie music has become a regular part of the annual lineup for the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Offerings ranging from The Nightmare Before Christmas to Harry Potter to The Princess Bride—all with scores performed live and accompanied by a screening in real time. This month, Boettcher Concert Hall plays host to Marvel Studios’ Infinity Saga (February 15 and 16) and How to Train Your Dragon (February 28).
“The films are totally crushing it,” says Izabel Zambrzycki, Colorado Symphony’s artistic general manager. “They’re the perfect entry point for young and old audiences alike because nothing beats the live experience of an orchestra.”
It’s a practice that dates back to the mid-1890s Silent Era of film, when there was live welcome music, improv cues, special effects, and sounds to cover noisy film projectors. D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915) was the first silent film to incorporate a compiled musical score for orchestras to play alongside. But it wasn’t until famed composer John Williams created the iconic scores for blockbuster franchises like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Harry Potter that audiences craved seeing movie music performed live.
We sat down with Zambrzycki to learn more about the popularity of movie concerts, the criteria for selecting films for performance, and the current and future lineup for movies with the Colorado Symphony.
Editor’s note: The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
5280: What do you do as artistic general manager?
Izabel Zambrzycki: I’m the operational person and oversee the team in their day-to-day activities. But I’m also looking two to three years into the future and always have future calendars pulled up on my computer. My role involves coming up with what we want to do now, what we want to do in the future, and the kinds of film concerts that will resonate most with our audiences.
So, if we wanted to know what the future holds for 2026 or 2027, we could ask you?
Totally! It’s not the Pentagon or anything top secret. It’s fairly easy to predict. Like, we’ve done Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban this season. So, you can probably assume we’ll do Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire next season.
How does the orchestra know to stay on the right timing?
The whole orchestra is on a click track, like a metronome, and they all have earbuds in their ears, including the conductor, who has the score as well as a screen right in front of him counting down every scene. Obviously, the music has to happen at the right time, because there’s nothing worse than seeing Star Wars and the timing is off when the Death Star blows up. We’ve had it happen where the click track fails. But that’s why you have to have a great conductor up there who knows how to keep going and knows what the timing should be like.
Can you perform alongside any movie?
There are some films where it can get really tricky. For instance, we did The Wizard of Oz last year and the Munchkinland scene is so out of time, you wouldn’t believe it. And when you try to put a metronome to it, it’s impossible because it doesn’t land consistently in the same tempo. So that’s why we bring in conductors that specialize in the older films.
How long does it take to prepare for one of these concerts?
The Colorado Symphony has 80 full time, professionally trained musicians on hand. We do them in two, two-and-a-half hour rehearsals over a week and then we’ll perform them in front of an audience. If the orchestra has performed a movie before, like Elf, we’ll do it in one rehearsal.
When planning for upcoming seasons, how are the movie scores selected?
One of the most important things is that we pick a diverse range. You can have movies that are super kid-friendly, but you also want to show things like Star Wars that are definitely going to bring in an older generation. One of the things we’ve done is run polls on social media. We did Home Alone for two years in a row and wanted to do something different, and that’s how Jim Carrey’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas came about—off of a poll.
How successful have the movie concerts been?
The movie concerts do extremely well, especially in the past few years. For instance, The Nightmare Before Christmas is an annual performance because it’s turned into a holiday tradition for so many people. I’ve met so many people at classical concerts who have said their first concert was a movie concert. People see the orchestra and then they’re curious to see what else we offer. Once you get in the door, you’ll come back.
Is there a particular movie score out there that you would like to see that hasn’t been done yet?
I think one of the things that I want the orchestra to do is The Lord of the Rings. No spoilers here, but I am working on it. It’s not vastly different from other films, but it’s a huge undertaking and investment. It requires a full chorus, a children’s chorus, a soprano soloist, and a very large orchestra.
What can you tell me about Marvel’s Infinity Saga and How to Train Your Dragon this month?
The Infinity Saga just premiered this past summer at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and we’re going to be the first orchestra to perform it after them. So I’m really excited about that. It’s more of a “clips show,” where key moments are taken out of each of the Marvel movies with music. How to Train Your Dragon is obviously super family-friendly. But it’s also one of the most beautiful film scores ever composed. And I’m so excited that it will be performed under the direction of Christopher Dragon.
Tickets for 2025 Colorado Symphony programming can be found here. Prices for each performance typically range from $15–$110. The 2025–2026 season will be announced on March 3, 2025.
