2008 UCLA Goldsmith Concert Dinner

I found a set of photos of a bunch of us film score geeks having a pre-concert dinner, I think at the W hotel in Westwood, before a Jerry Goldsmith at UCLA on December 7, 2008.

This was a great concert! The details are here from the Film Music Society, who worked with the American Youth Symphony on a three-concert “Jerry Goldsmith Project” of concerts from 2008–11, conducted by David Newman.

These were the Goldsmith concerts of our dreams, fully embracing his modernist persona with many pieces presented from the original film orchestrations—complete with unusual instrumentation (which could be quite challenging to program). It made it more than worth it to brave the horrendous traffic and parking of UCLA!

The concerts were in contrast to Goldsmith’s own performances during his lifetime, which were more focused towards a pops sensibility. Goldsmith scored a heap of famous films, but aside from the theme to Star Trek, he didn’t have the Raiders or Superman-kind of pieces that would get people to freak out upon hearing the first bar. So he focused on more current projects with accessible melodies, which unfortunately made them tend to sound the same; but the “Goldsmith Project” went back to the 1960s and ’70s goodies and fully leaned into his modernist sensibility.

The concerts were also great meeting grounds for the film music community, from composers to industry personnel to fans. Everybody had such affection and worship of Jerry, we all came out and it was great to see each other.

At the table in the pic above, L-R: me (with my eyes closed), composer Rani Sharone, Goldsmith’s longtime agent Richard Kraft, Varèse Sarabande’s Robert Townson, FSM’s Jonathan Z. Kaplan (that’s actually him smiling), and Jeff Bond’s shoulder.

There are seven other pics, which I’ve posted to the FSM Facebook page. Also joining us at the table: Daniel Schweiger; Liz Neff, Richard’s girlfriend at the time; and Nick Redman and Julie Kirgo.