A Clockwork Orange and Beyond

PRESENTED BY AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Cult films, synthesisers and an age of innovation, featuring the iconic film scores of Wendy Carlos and more.

Music and image are inextricable in cinema. Blade Runner. Solaris. A Clockwork Orange. You see and hear them. Most of all, you remember the way they made you feel.

We go to the movies to explore the innovations that shaped a generation of trailblazing composers and their unique sound worlds for the screen. Joining the ACO is electronic artist Will Gregory, co-founder and member of internationally revered English electronic music duo Goldfrapp, and an ensemble of Moog Synthesisers.

Pioneers Wendy Carlos and Delia Derbyshire opened the floodgates in the 1960s. Carlos interpreted Bach for the electronic age with Switched-On Bach while Delia Derbyshire gave Australian composer Ron Grainer's theme for Doctor Who its indelible sci-fi sound.

Malcolm McDowell as Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange is as much Carlos's film as Stanley Kubrick's. Its blend of original composition with synthesised treatments of classical music was audacious and wildly influential. Taking their cue from the innovations of Carlos and Derbyshire, while looking back to Hollywood's golden age, sits the music of Vangelis, John Williams and Hans Zimmer – some of the most affecting and iconic in cinema.

Programme

Wendy Carlos / Johann Sebastian Bach Switched-On Bach: Selections

Olivier Messiaen Oraison

Franz Waxman Sinfonietta: I. Lento – Allegro

And selections from the soundtracks to:

Wendy Carlos 
Tron and A Clockwork Orange

Vangelis 
Blade Runner and Chariots of Fire

John Williams 
Images

Hans Zimmer 
Interstellar

Eduard Artemyev / Johann Sebastian Bach 
Solaris

Delia Derbyshire / Ron Grainer 
Doctor Who

Program notes courtesy Sydney Opera House, May 14, 2023

First published at Coast Box Office, May 14, 2023