Conductor Justin Freer delights in sharing his passion for film music

Composer-conductor Justin Freer has a passion for film music. After studying trumpet and piano, he conducted his first work, for a wind ensemble, at just age 11. Continuing his studies at UCLA, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music composition, Freer was mentored by Hollywood icon Jerry Goldsmith, revered for scores such as “L.A. Confidential” (1997), “Total Recall” (1990), “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (1979) and “The Omen” (1976).

Now he’s making his own impact as a co-founder of CineConcerts, a company dedicated to the live presentation of film, television and media music. Freer also conducts several live-to-picture presentations annually, and he will lead members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in three performances Dec. 13-15 of “Elf in Concert.”

“I think the first thing is that it’s not the same as viewing a film at home, or listening to it at home, or even in a movie theater,” Freer said, in an interview for the Pacific Symphony’s site. “It’s so radically different. People are coming to a concert. Ultimately, that’s what separates this from seeing it at home or from another concert.

“The communal experience of watching it live with film matters as well,” he said. “Concert presentations bring out the fans, and they’re surrounded by thousands of other like-minded fans. There’s a party atmosphere at many of these events.”

On why he decided to create his own company for these presentations, he said, "It was the composer in me, because I learned very young that what made it fun to be involved at that stage of the craft was creating. And there’s the yearning for being involved with these projects from the very beginning. Some of them are incredibly challenging to put together, and they’re fun!"

CineConcerts started with “Gladiator” (2000), "that was our launching with [Oscar-winning film composer] Hans Zimmer. Before that, it really goes back to when I was a kid. ’Star Wars’ was part of my introduction to John Williams. It wasn’t the entire soundtrack, but it was track 15 of ’By Request: The Best of John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra.’ So I was introduced to John’s music simultaneously with Gustav Mahler’s and the Chicago Symphony performing it. So my ears were just on overload that day."

His grandfather bought these albums for him. "And I knew instantly, I fell in love with film music and concert music at the same time.

“And so I’ve always had a passion for John’s music, since I was a young boy, and film music in general. I learned to appreciate it much more when I was lucky enough to have spent time with Jerry Goldsmith before he passed away, and learning from him, and really appreciating the craft more and more. As we all know, he was a real master of the technique.”

Freer points out that “every orchestra has a different identity, a different color, a different sound. Every hall is different. The acoustical challenges are never the same, even when you come back to the same hall,” he said in an interview with St. Louis magazine. "Maybe the score is a little different, and you have a different issue to deal with stage left or stage right, or a sound effect gets in the way of that note, where the same sound effect didn’t get in the way of that same note because that note didn’t exist in the first score.

“It’s a constantly evolving set of variables. And when you get to hit the reset button and work with a new orchestra with the same score, at least for me, the feeling is like you’re being reborn, and you get to do it all over again — and it’s just as challenging! I’d hoped that these would get easier as we go on, but they don’t!”

Freer recalls an epiphany that he had after a performance of “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” "Walking off the podium, knowing that we just journeyed through so much music history, it reminds me of just how infinitesimally small our contributions really are in the context of music history. If we can have just a little tiny part of it, and in the case of the Harry Potter films, finding a way to connect with the young person, the young musician and finding a way to inspire them to perhaps become a musician, or practice more, or become an artist, whatever.

“Because we all have stories like that, where we heard something, we saw something, we did something that turned on the lightbulb, and we went a different way.”