Tim Burton has had an unusual and illustrious career. He got his start as the lead singer and songwriter for the quirky rock band Oingo Boingo before delving into film composition. He has garnered international recognition for composing over 100 feature film scores, as well as compositions for television, stage productions, and the concert hall.
Elfman has frequently collaborated with director Sam Raimi on films such as “Spider-Man” and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” and he wrote the music for the Men in Black film series franchise, the themes for the popular television series “The Simpsons,” “Desperate Housewives,” and more recently, Tim Burton’s Netflix series “Wednesday.”
Throughout his career, Elfman has been honored with four Academy Award nominations, three Emmy Awards, a GRAMMY Award (1990), the Richard Kirk Award (2002), the Disney Legend Award (2015), the Max Steiner Film Music Achievement Award (2017), and the Society of Composer and Lyricists’ Lifetime Achievement Award (2022).
In addition to those accolades, Elfman has been director Tim Burton’s composer for more than 35 years, having scored 17 Burton films including “Batman” and “Batman Returns,” “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” “Beetlejuice,” “Edward Scissorhands,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Big Fish,” “Alice in Wonderland,” and most recently “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” as well as music, lyrics and songs for “The Nightmare Before Christmas” for which he also sang the part of Jack Skellington.
Pacific Symphony is celebrating Elfman’s prolific career with a concert February 13 and 14 entitled “Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton” at Segerstrom Concert Hall.
According to Pacific Symphony, this visually enhanced concert highlights Elfman’s most iconic scores from gothic lullabies to epic anthems. The performance conjures a strange and beautiful world where whimsy walks hand-in-hand with darkness. It’s a visceral, theatrical journey into a composer’s fantastical mindscape.
Guest conductor Sarah Hicks leads the Pacific Symphony for these evenings of music, with the help of guest violinist Sandy Cameron and the Cal State Fullerton University Singers.
Hicks is the perfect choice to lead this concert. She is an in-demand conductor across an array of genres as well as an educator, arranger, producer, writer and speaker. Her career has seen collaborations with diverse artists, from Hilary Hahn and Dmitiri Hvorostovsky to Rufus Wainwright, Jennifer Hudson and Smokey Robinson; during the summer of 2011 she toured with Sting as conductor of his Symphonicities Tour. Her passion for cross-genre partnerships led to a 2019 album with rap artist Dessa and the Minnesota Orchestra, with whom she holds a titled position.
A specialist in film music and the film in concert genre, she is thrilled to create concert experiences which combine sight and sound, and that welcome new audiences to the orchestral genre.
The Pacific Symphony is also the perfect orchestra to perform Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton. Many of the Pacific Symphony musicians also play on movie soundtracks, so they are well-versed in film music.
“Danny Elfman has one of the most unique voices in the film industry, behind maybe only John Williams,” said Enrico Lopez-Yañez, the symphony’s principal pops conductor. “He is such an impactful composer. I think his sound from Oingo Boingo, and just being that kind of pop rock artist, has inspired him to create these worlds of sound that are so unique and so orchestra centric. It’s a fun way to hear his music—with a live orchestra. They’re all just so fun and high energy. And when he needs to be creepy, he’s the master of that sort of eerie sound.”
For tickets, visit www.PacificSymphony.org.
