Frozen

This concert experience presents Christophe Beck's complete film score for Frozen, played live by the orchestra in synchronization with a projection of the movie, so the songs and dialogue come from the screen while the orchestra supplies the underscore and accompanies the songs in real time. Because the film runs beginning to end without intermission breaks built into the music itself, listeners follow the story of Anna and Elsa exactly as in the theatrical release, but hear the instrumental writing with new clarity, since it is no longer mixed against a soundtrack recording. Listen for how Beck uses cold, glassy textures, high strings, tuned percussion, and choral voices, to suggest ice and snow whenever Elsa's magic appears on screen. The recurring themes attached to Elsa and to the sisters' bond return in different orchestral colors as the story develops, thinning out for tender scenes and swelling to full orchestra at moments of danger or transformation. The songs themselves, including the show-stopping ballad late in the film, are woven into the orchestral fabric rather than standing apart from it, so the orchestra's live playing underlines the emotional turns of the plot moment by moment.

Christophe Beck composed the score for Disney's animated feature Frozen, released in 2013, working alongside songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, who wrote the film's songs. Beck's score wove around and supported those songs while carrying the film's dramatic and emotional weight in its own right. The score earned Beck a Grammy nomination. Following the film's enormous popularity, Disney and orchestras worldwide developed a "live to film" concert format, in which a symphony orchestra performs the entire score live while the movie is projected with its songs and dialogue intact but its original orchestral track removed. These presentations have become a staple of orchestras' family and pops programming, bringing new audiences, including many families and young listeners, into the concert hall to experience a beloved film as a live orchestral event.