Darth Vader Meets The Godfather

Michael Newnham, Conductor

Orchestra Toronto presents our first-ever concert dedicated entirely to film music - an exciting addition to our season! This cinematic program highlights two landmark scores that transformed the role of orchestral music in film. Nino Rota’s music for The Godfather draws on Sicilian folk traditions and classical forms to deepen the film’s exploration of family, legacy, and moral ambiguity. John Williams’s Star Wars score channels the grandeur of late-Romantic composers like Wagner and Holst, using recurring musical themes to represent characters, places, and ideas across the saga. Together, these works reveal how orchestral soundtracks have shaped the emotional and narrative landscape of modern cinema.