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NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE!
HOUSTON SYMPHONY BRINGS THE MATRIX LIVE TO JONES HALL
HOUSTON (July 15, 2011) – At the turn of the millennium in 1999, the science
fiction film, The Matrix, turned movie-making on its head and made audiences
question reality. Now, THE MATRIX LIVE brings the Oscar®-winning film to the
concert hall. This live film concert combines visionary science fiction imagery with
the sound and power of a large symphony orchestra. The Houston Symphony is
honored to perform the North American premiere of THE MATRIX LIVE on
Thursday, November 3 at Jones Hall.
Audiences will enjoy an extraordinary movie-going experience complete with a
large screen—one of the biggest ever employed by the Symphony—hung above
the Jones Hall stage, together with the entire Houston Symphony performing the
musical score live. Composer and conductor Don Davis reconciled new music
disciplines with the requirements of an action film, using complex and unrelenting
sounds to portray the irreality of the Matrix.
SYMPHONY SPECIAL
Jones Hall
615 Louisiana St.
Houston, TX 77002
Thursday, November 3, 2011, 7:30 PM
THE MATRIX LIVE
Don Davis, composer and conductor
Tickets from $20
What is THE MATRIX?
Neo, a hacker, is contacted via the Internet by a mysterious underground
organization. The leader of the group, the wanted terrorist Morpheus, lets him in
on a terrible secret: life as we know it is just an illusory world. In reality, people
have long been controlled by a sinister virtual power – The Matrix, whose agents
already have their sights on Neo. THE MATRIX, released in 1999, played a
groundbreaking role in the development of the science fiction genre, dealing with
a subject of concern to millions of cinema goers at the turn of the millennium: the
border between reality and the virtual world. The film's content, narrative and
technical realization (e.g. the so-called ‘bullet time effect’) helped open up and
propagate a new dimension of film appreciation. THE MATRIX LIVE brings the
Oscar®-winning film to the concert hall. This live film concert combines visionary
science fiction imagery with the sound of a large symphony orchestra. THE
MATRIX LIVE is an outstanding musical and visual experience. No one can be
told what The Matrix is… You must see it for yourself.
About Don Davis
Don Davis has enjoyed a successful and widely varied musical career, not only
as a seminal and prolific composer of contemporary orchestral and chamber
works for the concert stage but also as a versatile dramatic composer and
conductor of film and television music.
He was born in 1957 in Anaheim, California, where he began the study of
instrumental music at the age of nine and composition at the age of twelve.
Serious musical education followed at the University of California at Los Angeles,
in addition to individual study with numerous composers including Henri Lazarof
and Albert Harris. His compositions have been performed at the Monday Evening
Concerts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as at numerous
contemporary music concerts and festivals by ensembles such as The California
E.A.R. Unit, The Los Angeles Master Chorale, XTET, the Arditti Quartet, the New
Hollywood String Quartet, the Debussy Trio, the Rundfunk Kammer Orchester of
Amsterdam, and at recitals of individual instrumental and vocal artists from whom
he regularly receives commissions.
His Afterimages for violin and piano was a finalist in the Dutilleux International
Composition Competition and was later performed at an IRCAM Artist Series
concert at the Pompidou Center in Paris by Maryvonne Le Dizès and Dimitri
Vassilakis of the Ensemble Intercontemporain. His full-length opera Río de
Sangre was premiered in October 2010 by the Florentine Opera Company in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra conducted by
Joseph Rescigno. Excerpts from Río de Sangre were premiered as a concert
suite by the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Orchestra under the direction of
Grant Gershon in November of 2005 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los
Angeles, and Albany Records is releasing a CD of Río de Sangre’s world
premiere recording in September, 2011. His string quartet Bleeding Particles has
been released on an Albany Records CD of West Coast composers performed
by the Arditti Quartet, and his piano piece Illicit Felicity was released on Gloria
Cheng’s Piano Dance: A 20th Century Portrait on Telarc Records.
Mr. Davis has earned a great deal of recognition of achievement including a first
prize in the ICA/Taper Foundation Commission Competition, a Prize in the 1983
International Gaudeamus Musicweek, a Second Prize in the 1983 Valentino
Bucchi Composition Competition for String Quartet, three B.M.I. Awards to
Student Composers, two A.S.C.A.P. Foundation Grants to Young Composers, a
Second Prize in the Symposium V for New Band Music, and two Emmy Awards.
He has composed numerous film and television scores, including the Warner
Bros. feature film trilogy The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, and The Matrix
Revolutions.
About Houston Symphony
The Houston Symphony has played a central role in Houston’s cultural and civic
life since 1913. Each year, the Houston Symphony performs more than 170
concerts for approximately 350,000 people, featuring an innovative and broad
spectrum of classical, popular, education and community-based symphonic
programming. For tickets and more information regarding the 2011 Summer
season or the upcoming 2011-12 season, please visit
www.houstonsymphony.org or call 713-224-7575.
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