{"id":518553,"date":"2026-01-15T18:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/518553\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T18:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:50:13","slug":"scott-dunn-orchestra-proves-that-background-music-deserves-l-a-s-full-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/518553\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Dunn Orchestra proves that ‘background’ music deserves L.A.\u2019s full attention"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Film music is perhaps the most heard but least listened to music out there. And despite its ubiquity and invaluably additive contribution to cinema and frequent artistic glory, it has suffered from this lack of attention, of sufficient appreciation.<\/p>\n

It had bastard status among classical culturati from the get-go, which kept it out of the concert halls where it arguably belonged as a rightful heir to other long-form orchestral music. But it has also gone unappreciated by the masses and even the film industry itself: look no further than the Golden Globes\u2019 decision not to air the original score category on Sunday\u2019s broadcast, ostensibly for time reasons. (Ludwig G\u00f6ransson won for \u201cSinners,\u201d and the show still ran longer than \u201cAvatar: Fire and Ash.\u201d)<\/p>\n

On a mission against this devaluing and general ignorance about film music is conductor Scott Dunn, who has partnered with the Wallis in Beverly Hills to form a new orchestra \u2014 comprised of L.A.\u2019s ace session players \u2014 dedicated to performing the best this art form has to offer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fascinating to me that we had all these great geniuses in town, and kind of ignored them,\u201d says Dunn.<\/p>\n

The Scott Dunn Orchestra debuted last May with a whole concert devoted to Henry Mancini, followed in November by a showcase of Hollywood\u2019s midcentury modernists. This Saturday they will host a tour of the 1970s, which means classic music by Jerry Goldsmith (\u201cChinatown\u201d), Nino Rota (\u201cThe Godfather\u201d), Marvin Hamlisch (\u201cThe Spy Who Loved Me\u201d), David Shire (\u201cThe Conversation\u201d) \u2014 and, of course, John Williams.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Dunn says this was probably the hardest concert he\u2019s ever programmed: \u201cI could, in 10 seconds, put together a second and maybe a third program from the \u201970s, because the list is endless.\u201d<\/p>\n

(His next concert, in May, will focus on the European \u00e9migr\u00e9 composers who helped write the code of Hollywood film scoring in the 1930s.)<\/p>\n

The \u201970s was a fertile decade for film scoring. Some New Hollywood auteurs were eager for experimentation: \u201cChinatown,\u201d <\/a>composed as a replacement score in just 11 days, was written for four pianos, four harps, and solo trumpet; while \u201cThe Conversation\u201d was just solo piano, as lonely as the film\u2019s melancholy protagonist, Harry Caul. Other new directors wanted some old-time religion; thus, young Martin Scorsese teaming up with the legendary Bernard Herrmann on \u201cTaxi Driver,\u201d and young Steven Spielberg tapping John Williams \u2014 who dramatically resurrected the grand, symphonic storytelling score.<\/p>\n

A fresh wind also blew in from across the Atlantic, with French and Italian composers importing both Old World (Rota) and New Wave (Michel Legrand) aesthetics to American cinema. Still another breeze blew in from Broadway, with composers like Hamlisch bringing extreme tunefulness and an arranger\u2019s sensibility. Dunn\u2019s program also includes music from the final score of Old Hollywood maestro Mikl\u00f3s R\u00f3zsa, for the 1979 film \u201cTime After Time.\u201d It was truly a decade of transition.<\/p>\n

\"Conductor <\/p>\n

Conductor Scott Dunn<\/p>\n

(Kevin Parry)<\/p>\n

Some of these scores, or at least their main themes, have been heard in the concert hall. But even the best film music has often been relegated to \u201cpops\u201d and summertime concerts, with a tacit judgment among symphony orchestras that it should only ever be paired with children and picnic blankets.<\/p>\n

It is true that film music is on every orchestra\u2019s schedule these days \u2014 but as second fiddle to a giant projection of a popular movie. The LA Phil has joined an international trend of screening movies like \u201cJurassic Park\u201d and \u201cHome Alone\u201d and playing their scores live to picture, a phenomenon that Dunn says he hoped \u201cwould bring interest in film music \u2014 but it hasn\u2019t particularly garnered much focus on the music or the quality of the music. It\u2019s mostly turned into a way to sell tickets for blockbuster films and fill your theater and make revenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich is a great thing,\u201d he quickly adds. \u201cIt brings people in. But I find that if you actually take the film out of the equation, and are careful about the music selected, you can really make some amazing concerts of this music.\u201d<\/p>\n

His model was John Mauceri, who founded the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in 1991 and conducted ambitious film music concerts here for 15 summers. Mauceri advocated a position that \u201cthe attention should be focused on the score,\u201d says Dunn, who assisted Mauceri during those years \u2014 \u201cthat the film is actually kind of distracting, that the score works as concert music if it\u2019s massaged correctly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The obstacles to presenting film music in concert have come from forces without \u2014 but also from inside the house. The snobbery and disdain from classical elites was internalized by the first generation or two of Hollywood composers, who in turn dismissed their own work and also often did not make an effort to preserve the music or rearrange it for concert performance. (Locating old score parts and making them playable, in addition to licensing from studios and rights holders, compounds the difficulty of these kinds of concerts.)<\/p>\n

But ever since the dawn of Hollywood, there have been enthusiasts for these modern Wagners and Mozarts, moviegoers who developed a third ear to keenly listen to and appreciate this exciting new music playing under dialogue and sound effects, music that gets pejoratively labeled as \u201cbackground\u201d but which, for us, is the lifeblood and spiritual soul of cinema.<\/p>\n

This little club included a lot of musicians, who went on to play \u201cIndiana Jones\u201d in their school ensembles and then joined professional orchestras and couldn\u2019t wait to play \u201cStar Wars\u201d in Disney Hall or Carnegie Hall. The club also included conductors \u2014 like Gustavo Dudamel<\/a>, an unabashed film music geek \u2014 as well as Mauceri and David Newman, son of legendary film composer Alfred Newman, who both became specialists and advocates in film music concerts.<\/p>\n

Dunn came to this club in a roundabout way. Growing up in Iowa, he was drawn to the sheet music of Broadway songs on his family piano, and with the help of a great teacher he won a spot at Juilliard. But piano competitions freaked him out and he fled from music; he moved to L.A. and took pre-med courses at USC, earning board certification as an eye surgeon.<\/p>\n

\"Scott <\/p>\n

Scott Dunn Orchestra<\/p>\n

(Kevin Parry)<\/p>\n

Around this time in the early \u201990s, Dunn sold his house; one of the interested buyers was Leonard Rosenman, the Oscar-winning composer famous for \u201cRebel Without a Cause,\u201d who noticed the Steinway grand piano and competition-level scores and recognized that this \u201cdoctor\u201d was in fact a musician. They met and became friends, and Rosenman convinced Dunn to return to music.<\/p>\n

He initially went back to the piano, but found the life of a concert soloist rather lonely, so he gravitated toward conducting and making music with an entire orchestra.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t recommend that path \u2014 trying to become a world-class conductor in your late 30s is a really painful row to hoe,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

But it paid off. Dunn has conducted top orchestras from L.A. to Sydney, and accompanied many pop recording artists in addition to his championing of film music. (He also often does the arrangements, and occasionally sits at the keyboard.)<\/p>\n

Is there an audience for this music? Dunn knocks on a wooden table and says they\u2019ve sold out every concert so far. He has hopes for future concerts celebrating French composers, Randy Newman\u2019s film music (\u201cI just think he\u2019s our modern day Schubert\u201d) and, naturally, John Williams (\u201cI\u2019d love to explore some of his incredible lesser-known scores\u201d).<\/p>\n

This \u201cbackground\u201d music deserves L.A.\u2019s full attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Film music is perhaps the most heard but least listened to music out there. And despite its ubiquity…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":518554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[231077,9240,1582,276,18926,231072,231073,231074,14107,231076,6276,2961,231079,224,5337,231080,975,5968,231078,231075],"class_list":{"0":"post-518553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-amazing-concert","9":"tag-background","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-cinema","13":"tag-dunn","14":"tag-film-music","15":"tag-full-attention","16":"tag-hollywood","17":"tag-john-mauceri","18":"tag-l-a","19":"tag-la","20":"tag-little-club","21":"tag-los-angeles","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-marvin-hamlisch","24":"tag-music","25":"tag-score","26":"tag-scott-dunn-orchestra","27":"tag-time-reason"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115900621338622649","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}