'Get Out' composer will lead a musical 'high-wire act' at Chicago's Auditorium Theatre

Even the biggest fans of writer-director Jordan Peele's horror sensation “Get Out” haven't seen it as many times as film composer Michael Abels.

“You have no idea how many times a composer has to see a film to write the music for it,” Abels said last week by phone. “I would say - short of the director and the editor - I would say the composer sees the film more than anyone else.”

But even the hundredth or thousandth time through, one variable alters the experience: “The audience reaction always makes it new.”

You can be part of that audience when Abels conducts the Chicago Sinfonietta on Saturday, Sept. 21, at Chicago's Auditorium Theatre in a concert timed exactly to the 2017 Oscar-winning film as it plays above the 40 musicians and five singers.

Singers? Yes, the performance features both Abels' nerve-twisting score and the soundtrack's pop songs, like “Redbone” by Childish Gambino, memorably used in the film's opening credits along with Abels' own “Sikiliza Kwa Wahenga.” (Google the meaning of the latter's Swahili lyrics to discover yet another dimension to the film.)

Abels and key leaders of the ensemble will wear headphones with a metronome-like “click track” guiding them through the performance. “Music, when it goes with a film, it's timed very specifically to the picture, and particularly in a suspense film where there's a jump scare, the music has to react exactly when the moment comes,” Abels said. “The coordination of doing that live is kind of like a high-wire act.”

Two rehearsals with the orchestra should be enough to nail it, Abels said, but he'll also conduct a separate rehearsal with the singers. “So much of singing is about sort of the things that actors do, you know, casting and motivation, and things like that, so I like to be able to talk with them when the orchestra isn't there,” he said.

Live-to-picture performances are not new to Chicago audiences - the Chicago Symphony Orchestra does blockbusters like “Star Wars” or “Lord of the Rings” every year - but a suspenseful (and often funny) horror film like “Get Out” is not the usual concert fare. “It's so great when people just scream their heads off at the scares, and then laugh at themselves for being so afraid,” Abels said.

He says that kind of atmosphere is fun for orchestras used to quiet, reserved audiences. “In a classical concert, we are encouraged not to react emotionally in a way that would distract from the music,” Abels said. “But a film concert is very much a film experience ... we want the audience to react as if they're in a movie theater, so if you want to talk back to the screen, go right ahead!”

Abels, 56, had been a classical composer for years when Peele found a recording of his work on YouTube and decided to give him a call. He can trace the genesis of his career back to Chicago - and the Sinfonietta, which recorded 1991's “Global Warming,” what he calls his “first mature, adult work.”

“Maestro Paul Freeman, who founded the orchestra, obviously had a strong commitment to diversity in concert music, a tradition which the Sinfonietta carries on to this day,” Abels said. “The Sinfonietta has been one of the leading orchestras in doing concert performances with video ... when 'Get Out' was such a hit, it seemed like a natural fit.”

“Get Out,” a story of, shall we say, extreme cultural appropriation starring Oscar nominee Daniel Kaluuya as a black photographer meeting his white girlfriend's family for the first time, wasn't just a hit - it became a cultural phenomenon, grossing $176 million in North America on a $4.5 million budget and earning an Oscar for Peele's screenplay and a best-picture nomination.

“I didn't know that people would get the film, I thought that it would be really polarizing,” Abels said. But they did get it, and he says its success has been “hugely gratifying.”

“I am extremely lucky to have been a part of something that I think is a film that people will go back, years from now, and tell young people that they should look at and study,” he said.

'Get Out' with the Chicago Sinfonietta

What: Screening of the film with a live performance by the orchestra and choir, conducted by composer Michael Abels

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21

Where: Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive, Chicago

Tickets: $29-$78. Buy online at tickets.auditoriumtheatre.org or call (312) 341-2300 for info

Recommended parking: Loop Auto Parks, 524 S. Wabash, $20

Follow Sean on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.