The Star Wars franchise celebrated its 40th anniversary last year, and this autumn George Lucas’ original 1977 classic A New Hope will be screened in cities around the world with live orchestral accompaniment from orchestras performing John Williams’ Oscar-winning score.
Prague will be among those cities (joining London, Amsterdam, and others) as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope comes to the Czech capital’s O2 Arena on October 15.
In Prague, Williams’ iconic soundtrack will be performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Christophe Eliot. At O2 Arena, the film will be screened on a giant 20×10 meter screen behind the orchestra.
While film screenings accompanied by live music have become a hot ticket in Prague in recent years, this is the very first time that Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope will be screened with live music in the Czech Republic.
John Williams won his third Oscar for the 1977 Star Wars soundtrack, and has since accumulated a total of five Oscar wins and 51 nominations, second only to Walt Disney in Academy Award history. The 86-year-old composer has scored each film in three main Star Wars trilogies, with Episode IX up next on his agenda.
The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra are no strangers to film soundtracks. They recorded Angelo Badalamenti’s scores to both Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive for director David Lynch, and have worked on numerous other film soundtracks over the past two decades.
They also have a previous Star Wars connection, having performed much of the music for Kevin Kiner’s scores on the animated TV shows Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels. This year, in fact, they shared an Emmy nomination with Kiner for the Rebels soundtrack (losing out to Ramin Djawadi and Game of Thrones).
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope will screen with live music from the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra on Monday, October 15 from 20:00.
Tickets run from 890 – 1790 CZK and can be purchased via TicketPro.
But which version of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope will be screened? Going by footage of an official concert that took place in Leipzig earlier this year, it will be the remastered 2011 blu-ray release, with altered colors and added special effects.