Listening to Duel of the Fates by John Williams (Darth Maul’s theme from Star Wars Epidode 1) got me thinking about the costs involved in hiring the LSO to perform something like this.
So what’s the daily rate for hiring the LSO?
I have no idea, but I need my house painted and I presume the entire LSO could make short work of it.
Hmmm…it all depends on exactly what you’d want. I’m presuming you’re imagining settling down to your own private performance, for you and selected guests.
Assuming you’d be having the LSO (or an equivalent orchestra) playing in their home town, and to play a full concert of such music, you’re looking at funding two rehearsals and a the concert. The two big costs are going to be the wage bill (players, conductor, and admin), and the cost of the venue.
The former is easy to give a ballpark figure - expect to pay perhaps £250-400 for each rank-&-file player, with rising costs for principals, and something like Star Wars might need forces of about 90. As for the conductor, it depends what you want, but you’d probably be looking well into four figures even without a ‘big name’. Maybe budget about £35k for that?
Venue costs: hmm, not easy to figure out. Funnily enough, the cost of hiring the Barbican or the Festival Hall aren’t easy to find online…but it ain’t going to be cheap. The bare minimum will be for the physical venue and for necessary backstage employees. I’d be surprised if it’s under five figures.
So my guesstimate for the cost of your Star Wars Extravaganza is close to £50,000.
There’s numerous ways you could get the cost down, while still getting a fairly decent private performance. Finding a cheaper venue would be an obvious option - although you then face the logisitics and cost of getting players and instruments (including a frickin’ big percussion section) into position. A suitable cathedral could be had very cheaply, but you’d need to provide everything from music stands to stage lighting. Getting a cheaper orchestra would also be an obvious step - somebody like the Bournemouth Symphony or Royal Liverpool Phil would save a decent chunk of money, and you could go further, with a freelance-based setup. But you’d start to run the risk of a serious decline in quality, particularly with an unfamiliar programme.
It’s worth noting that the LSO and Star Wars have something of a ‘special relationship’, going back to the first film. The recording of a whole soundtrack is a lot more work than for a concert performance. No ‘normal’ soundtrack would be recorded by such an orchestra - it’d be done with freelance session musicians.
Oh, and all of this is very much UK-oriented. Them Merkin orchestras wouldn’t cope with two rehearsals… 
(That’s actually a serious point, not Yank-bashing: British orchestras have a long-standing tradition/ability/necessity to play unfamiliar music with very little preparation.) I’d be very interested to see how the total costs would break down in different countries.
Backstage manager: Who is playing with the London Symphony Orchestra? Come on people, somebody ordered the London Symphony Orchestra… posssibly while high.
Oddly enough, some bloke has just arranged (payment required after a while) for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to play a special programme of his girlfriend’s favourite music at the Royal Festival Hall. From the link:
The RFH is selling tickets as normal for the concert, so it’s perhaps not quite as private as you had in mind.
Cypress Hill, I’m looking at you.
Do you guys know “Insane in the Brain”?
Cite? You’re saying that we struggle with sight reading?
Comparitively, yes. British orchestras have, for generations, been expected to get through just about any programme, no matter how difficult or unfamiliar, with very little rehearsal time. And you can forget about them spending any time working on their parts independently.
Our 100-member community orchestra in Chicagoland has performed at the local country club for a mere $5k - and we played the opening suite from Star Wars quite admirably, with nary a clunker.
The musicians in LA have mastered this particular skill, as well. As far as film scores go, listen to The Matrix Reloaded by Don Davis, specially “Burly Brawl” if you want to be amazed by the level of competency emanating from the orchestra.
Film scores are meat & veg, as far as sightreading is concerned. I’m talking about things like a whole programme of obscure Maxwell-Davies on three hours rehearsal (I saw the concert, and it was good, apart from the music )
Excuse the ignorance or confusion…does ‘community orchestra’ mean amateur? If so, then that probably matches what you could get from a decent amateur orchestra here. (I’m presuming ‘nary a clunker’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘top-class virtuosity’? 
)
I find your lack of faith disturbing. 
You might say that about Grame Revell, the Media Ventures clan or even James Horner, but not about Davis’ Matrix scores. Because I sense you won’t be paying any special attention to his music, let me tell you that it is difficult to get right under the tight time constraints and it would be specially so if there is lack of talent and skill.
I’ve just listened to the exceprts of these available on Amazon, and I thoroughly stand by my ‘meat & veg’ description. Any player that couldn’t cope with that on a single rehearsal won’t be getting many more bookings.
/hijack (sorry)
Yes, regarding the amateur status. In the case of ours, only the Music Director/Conductor and Concert Master are paid, and then it’s more a stipend than salary. We have several strong players who are the backbone of the group, and most concerts feature special guest professionals (who are of course paid accordingly).
I was interested to note your distinction re: British orchestras, as our Music Director performed in the UK for over a dozen years before returning here (and still does a fair amount of work overseas). We must be playing at a similar level of accomplishment, as he took our group back to England for a couple of performances two summers ago.
And he does schedule about 6 rehearsals per performance, which might be fewer than one would expect from a group playing at our level.
It sounds like you’re certainly on the level of the ‘good’ amateur orchestras here - i.e. the ones that are on a level with the not-so-good ‘professional’ scratch orchestras.
Six? Six? You don’t know you were born…
Not that I place both on the same level, formal musical writing and film scores are completely different beings, but would you judge Shostakovich, Vaughan-Williams, or Maxwell-Davies based on clips? There are a lot of interesting devices in the music for The Matrix movies and the woodwinds in the piece I mentioned are exhilarating and would be very tiring to perform. I do recommend you be open-minded about these things and try to listen to the track “Burly Brawl” in its entirety if you want to experience some of the most insanely fast performances in movie music today. You could actually be pleasantly surprised. Keep in mind though, it’s a film score and usage of one bit of music (such as one track) to determine the rest of its content is impossible. While Davis is doing pyramids, follownig Leonard Rosenman in style, in one cue, he’s echoing Lutoslawski’s techniques for other portions of the score. You just can’t tell.
But, then again, I know I’m being ignored, so have a nice week. … 
No, no, I’m not questioning the quality of the music…but it really doesn’t sound difficult. Certainly no more than the other composers you mention.
I don’t understand this comment. Must be part of that “Brit wit”. I’m also curious about your reference to Bournemouth and Royal Liverpool as lesser or “cheaper” groups. Would you classify the Philharmonia the same way?
I’ll chime in and say that my community orchestra also played the opening of the Star Wars suite a few months ago, and though it wasn’t “top-class virtuosity”, everybody playing and listening had a good time, and that’s all that mattered. I got to sit next to the principal second violin for the first time this season, so it was all worth it for me.