Hollywood maestro Zimmer's orchestral gladiators march on Rosemont
Live performances of film music typically go one of two ways: Popular themes are heard as part of a kid-friendly symphonic program, or an orchestra performs the entire score as the film plays above on a giant screen.
Hans Zimmer wants to give you something different.
The prolific film composer, whose work in Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk" can be heard in a theater near you, will not be conducting an orchestra Friday, Aug. 4, at Allstate Arena in Rosemont. He'll be leading it from the piano, the guitar or the banjo, and there won't be any film clips to distract you. German-born Zimmer wants this global concert tour, his first, to be about the music and the musicians, not the movies he has worked on.
"It's about establishing a relationship with the audience," he said by phone from Gdansk, Poland, before a concert there. "The audience doesn't think of the movie, they think of where they were in their lives when they saw the movie."
Whether you realize it or not, the 59-year-old Zimmer's music has been the soundtrack of your life for almost 30 years. His African-infused melodies helped songwriters Elton John and Tim Rice bring Disney's "The Lion King" to life in 1994, and won Zimmer his only Oscar out of 10 nominations. His rousing theme from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series became a stadium anthem, introducing the White Sox in their 2005 World Series campaign and beyond at U.S. Cellular Field. Music from "Gladiator" fills the United Center before every Blackhawks game. And the distinctive horn blasts of 2010's "Inception" have been aped by countless movies and movie trailers.
Some of the musicians who created that soundtrack will be in Rosemont among Zimmer's 22 band members, augmented by strings and choir.
"I want to have as many players who appeared on the original score as possible," Zimmer said of his touring company. "If I'm coming out of the dark room and onto the stage, why should I do it alone?"
Among them is Tina Guo, whose electric cello powers the percussive "Wonder Woman" theme first heard in 2016's "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" and again in this summer's hit. The Shanghai native has been playing on Zimmer's scores since 2009's eclectic "Sherlock Holmes" and takes center stage for the "Pirates" medley that ends the show's first act.
When Zimmer and Co. performed that medley at Coachella, the California music festival more suited to acts like Lady Gaga and Kendrick Lamar, he called it a "cello concerto" - no short, radio-friendly bites of music on his stage.
"'Pirates' is 14 minutes. 'The Dark Knight' is 22 minutes. The audience wants to be immersed," Zimmer said. He appears to have been right. His set was the surprise hit of Coachella, thanks to an audience full of millennials who grew up on his music and the livestreaming festival's Twitter buzz.
That audience exploded when it heard the opening notes of "The Circle of Life," the iconic song that begins "The Lion King," sung by another one of Zimmer's cohorts.
"I have something better than the movie, I have the real man, Lebo M, the real voice you hear at the beginning of the film," Zimmer said of the Johannesburg vocalist who led and conducted the film's African choir. Zimmer originally thought "The Lion King" was inappropriate for the twenty-something Coachella audience, but guitarist Nile Marr - one of the youngest members of the band - talked him into it.
Marr's famous dad has worked with Zimmer, too. Johnny Marr, who performed alongside Morrissey as a member of The Smiths, gave "Inception" its trademark guitar sound, one you'll hear Nile play in the show's closing number.
Asked if the thunderous music from Christopher Nolan's sci-fi caper was his first choice to close the show, Zimmer paused for a moment.
"How candid shall I be ... you know, I'm going to be really candid."
Zimmer said "Inception" was the last project he worked on before the 2010 murder of his friend and agent, Ronni Chasen. Likewise, the show opens with music from his first job as Chasen's client, which explains why a two-and-a-half-hour show full of bombastic, heroic anthems from movies like "Man of Steel" and "Crimson Tide" begins with the lovely, delicate melodies of 1989's best-picture Oscar winner, "Driving Miss Daisy."
The circle of life moves us all.
<b>Five essential Zimmer scores</b>
1. "Gladiator" (2000) - Co-written by vocalist Lisa Gerrard and heavily inspired by Gustav Holst's "The Planets," Zimmer's score for "Gladiator" is as important to the Oscar-winning film as Russell Crowe's star-making performance. Gerrard's haunting voice is virtually a main character, beckoning Crowe's Maximus to the afterlife.
2. "Inception" (2010) - Horn blasts, intense percussion and swirling guitars formed Leonardo DiCaprio's dreamscape and changed movie trailers forever.
3. "Sherlock Holmes" (2009) - Not a stodgy, old-fashioned score for an English gentleman, but a riotous clash of banjos, Gypsy strings and a broken piano.
4. "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" (2007) - The most expansive, emotional score of the franchise features director Gore Verbinski slinging a twangy guitar.
5. "The Lion King" (1994) - Elton John and Tim Rice wrote the songs, but Zimmer is the real musical mastermind of Disney's classic. Oscar voters agreed.
Hans Zimmer Live on Tour
When: 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 4
Where: Allstate Arena, 6920 Mannheim Road, Rosemont, (800) 745-3000 or
Tickets: $65 to $125