It's quite evident that Columbus Symphony conductor Rossen Milanov is passionate about classic film scores from Hollywood's Golden Age. You can see it on his face and hear it in his voice as he speaks about composers such as Max Steiner, Maurice Jarre, and Elmer Bernstein.
Those composers and others are the subject of a week-long focus on music written for the silver screen the CSO is calling The Hollywood Festival.
In my conversation with Rossen, he spoke of the sweeping grandeur of the music Max Steiner wrote for Gone with the Wind in 1939.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F86gx2sww88
Music by Sergei Prokofiev is also on the program. Alexander Nevsky is a film which depicts a 13th century invasion by the Teutonic Knights of the Holy Roman Empire and their defeat by much smaller forces led by Prince Alexander, who was popularly known as Alexander Nevsky.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVJVymIwW08
No discussion of film music is complete without mentioning John Williams. Rossen Milanov says Williams has continued the legacy of those classic European-born film composers from the 30's, 40's, and 50's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D0ZQPqeJkk
Before the Friday and Saturday 8:00pm performances, Classical 101's Christopher Purdy takes a deeper look into the music on the program, as he does before all of the concerts in the Masterworks Series. For complete information on the week's events, visit columbussymphony.com.