Main Library CSU Channel Islands Lecture Series

 “Classical Music in Films”

Presented by KuanFen Liu, D.M.A., Assistant Professor of Performing Arts and Music

Did you know that many of the familiar tunes in the films come from the classical musical genre?  For instance, in The King’s Speech (2010, dir Tom Hooper), Colin Firth’s King George VI recites his first wartime radio broadcast, announcing Britain’s declaration of war on Germany in 1939, to the strains of the Second Movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony?  In addition, Stanley Kubrick’s science fiction A Space Odyssey used Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra to illustrate mankind’s development, from ape to Star Child?  If you did not, and want to know more, this lecture will solve those mysteries for you! Come explore the use of classical music in films.  Learn about the introduction of classical music in cinema in the early era, and explore the top ten classical music moments in the motion pictures.