Trish Crawford, The Toronto Star

Frodo, Sam, Gandalf and Aragorns’ valiant mission in Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring will be supported full-throttle with a large chorus and soloists performing live while the movie unspools in Roy Thomson Hall.

Canadian Howard Shore, who won three Oscars for his Lord of the Rings trilogy scores, notes that this new “concert and a movie” approach has livened up many a symphony hall. The Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) brings The Fellowship of the Ring to life from Dec. 1 to 3.

Shore has conducted more than 50 such orchestras himself and says movie scores can stand on their own two feet as concert fare.

“The Toronto Symphony, the Mendelssohn Choir, the Children’s Opera Chorus brings more than 200 musicians to the stage to recreate the score beautifully,” he says. “They do it as a concert first, then bring in the Tolkien dialogue.”

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