Special guests Black Panther comics writer, Eve L. Ewing, and Senegalese tama drummer and “Black Panther” co-composer Massamba Diop will join the Chicago Philharmonic in one performance only on Saturday, January 18, at 7:30 p.m. at the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive.
The Auditorium and the Chicago Philharmonic present the latest installment in its Auditorium Philms Concert Series, a multi-media experience presenting iconic films brought to life with scores performed in concert, with the landmark superhero movie Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther.”
The blockbuster film will play while a full orchestra performs the thrilling score composed by Ludwig Göransson—one of the most lauded and prolific composers working in film today—with in-sync dialogue and sound effects from the original film. Massamba Diop will join the orchestra for the performance. Diop assisted Göransson with composing the score for the film and is featured heavily in the original recording.
Göransson (who is known for his work as producer to Childish Gambino in addition to composing for tv and film, including “Oppenheimer,” “Tenet” and “The Mandalorian”) crafted the score to “Black Panther” in collaboration with Senegalese musicians Baba Maal and Massamba Diop.
The Academy Award and Grammy Award-winning movie score combines traditional Senegalese music, Western symphonic scoring, and 21st Century digital production techniques to parallel the film’s Afro-futurist themes and create a sound that feels both futuristic and ancient.
In a particularly inspired collaboration between Göransson and Diop, the film hero T’Challa is represented by three notes on the talking drum that sound rhythmically similar to the name “T’Challa.” This theme is repeated throughout the film, first by the talking drum and then the entire orchestra and is transformed depending on the scene.
For information, visit auditoriumtheatre.org.