{"id":474494,"date":"2026-09-24T19:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T19:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/474494\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T19:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T19:52:10","slug":"seth-macfarlane-curates-film-composers-for-l-a-chamber-orchestra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/474494\/","title":{"rendered":"Seth MacFarlane curates film composers for L.A. Chamber Orchestra"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Next year, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra \u2014 an intimate, 42-player group compared with the more than 100-member Los Angeles Philharmonic \u2014 will warm its new home, the highly anticipated<\/a>, Frank Gehry-designed Terri and Jerry Kohl Hall<\/a>. And it will do so with the help of a little light music: fanfares commissioned from half a dozen preeminent film composers \u2014 John Williams, Ludwig G\u00f6ransson, Joel McNeely, Thomas Newman, James Newton Howard and John Powell \u2014 curated by none other than Seth MacFarlane (best known as the creator and star of \u201cFamily Guy\u201d).<\/p>\n

The buzzwords are lighting up, but this is far from a game of performing arts Mad Libs; it\u2019s actually quite intentional. \u201cWe really thought about \u2026 \u2018What statement can we make to Los Angeles and to the performing arts world that really shows who we are?\u2019\u201d said LACO Executive Director Ben Cadwallader. \u201cWho is the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, specifically? And it really was this tie to Hollywood, to Los Angeles, to our musicians themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacFarlane was a natural fit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved movies and I loved movie music,\u201d MacFarlane said of his childhood in a recent interview. \u201cI would go to the record store and buy the latest John Williams soundtrack, which was usually out before the movie was released. I remember buying the \u2018Jurassic Park\u2019 soundtrack not having seen the movie, and it didn\u2019t matter. It was just great music. It was just great, symphonic music.\u201d<\/p>\n

LACO was founded by<\/a> an assemblage of musicians and civic leaders in 1968, including the cellist James Arkatov<\/a>. After emigrating from Russia as a child, Arkatov became the principal cellist at the Pittsburgh and San Francisco symphonies before landing in L.A. He arrived as a Hollywood studio musician, played on movie soundtracks and did backing for Ella Fitzgerald.<\/p>\n

From the beginning, LACO served as \u201cthe artistic outlet of studio players \u2026 these incredibly gifted musicians who bring our movies and TV shows to life,\u201d said Cadwallader, a situation that remains true to this day. LACO\u2019s musicians know it\u2019s \u201ca place where they can play \u2026 Bach and Mozart, and make music at a really high level in a performance environment, not a studio environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is why the christening of LACO\u2019s new home is also a homage to its roots: film composers. These giants of their fields will each write a spry, five- to seven-minute-long fanfare as openers for select LACO concerts throughout the season. (The works will also be performed at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, with John Williams\u2019 piece arriving first, in fall 2027.)<\/p>\n

MacFarlane knew just what to do, thanks to his long history with music. The actor, animator, filmmaker and comedian has released 10 studio albums, received five Grammy Award nominations and performed as a vocalist at the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall. (He also just released a 14-track album called \u201cSeth MacFarlane Sings the Muppets.\u201d) Plus, his parents raised him steeped in music.<\/p>\n

Nothing has changed here \u2014 throughout his career, MacFarlane has been relentlessly committed to including live music in his projects. The musical numbers on \u201cFamily Guy\u201d simply couldn\u2019t (and wouldn\u2019t) exist without an orchestra.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would somehow feel thin and hollow, and people may not know why their attention is drifting, but it would drift,\u201d MacFarlane said. \u201cI really think you need the muscular sound of 60 musicians in a room, and in the case of \u2018The Orville,\u2019 sometimes 90. \u2026 Hollywood has been doing it since pictures went to sound, and I hope they continue to do it for as long as we make film and television.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacFarlane noted that the only time many people actually hear a live orchestra is in film or television.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how many people go to the symphony,\u201d MacFarlane said. \u201cSo that\u2019s certainly a component. When I was a kid, even the syndicated afternoon cartoon shows used a live orchestra, and when you go back and you listen to them, oftentimes it\u2019s pretty legit composing. And I think that was important to have heard. I think it\u2019s just good for the brain to hear complex symphonic music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Composer, conductor and longtime MacFarlane collaborator Joel McNeely (whose wife, Margaret Batjer<\/a>, is LACO\u2019s concertmaster) got MacFarlane involved in this commissioning initiative. Then MacFarlane selected the participating composers (and supported the initiative financially). One final Mad Lib to solve: What exactly, you may be wondering, is a fanfare?<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\u201cThe perfect example \u2026 is the beginning of \u2018Star Wars,\u2019\u201d Cadwallader said, then hummed the intro. \u201cThere\u2019s big, loud brass. You cannot help but pay attention. \u2026 It puts a smile on your face. It maybe gets your heart racing a little bit. It\u2019s usually very rhythmic, very bright. It\u2019s like a big warm smile, or like a popping of a Champagne cork, to start a concert. \u2026 A bursting, effervescent moment of music to get things started. An amuse-bouche, if you like.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Next year, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra \u2014 an intimate, 42-player group compared with the more than 100-member…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[186600,186598,186599,186597,1743,126736,186601,48,52,51,42514,47,50,49,63,4287,21720,42344,10963,81296,154732],"class_list":["post-474494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-cadwallader","tag-fanfare","tag-favorite-film-composer","tag-great-music","tag-hollywood","tag-john-williams","tag-l-a-chamber-orchestra","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-laco","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-movie","tag-musician","tag-new-home","tag-orchestra","tag-seth-macfarlane","tag-symphonic-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}