Queensland Symphony Orchestra Is Screening 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' with a Live Soundtrack

Catch one of the 'Star Wars' saga's recent highlights back on the big screen with its score played live.
Sarah Ward
January 31, 2023

Almost five decades ago, a filmmaker wanted to journey to a galaxy far, far away, and he needed a republic cruiser's worth of epic tunes to go with it. Enter John Williams and the theme everyone now knows. When the first notes of Star Wars: Episode VI — A New Hope's score started playing over the film's opening crawl, movie and music history was made.

Neither Williams nor George Lucas could've known just what they'd unleashed, nor that Luke and Leia, Han and Chewie, plus the next generation of wannabe jedis and empire lackeys, would be gracing cinema screens years and years later. They also couldn't have known that the Star Wars movies, classic and recent alike, would keep hitting the big screen in a new concert format — pairing all those space-opera antics with a live orchestra playing the soundtrack.

Thankfully, that's what's been happening on this very planet — alongside oh-so-many other reasons to embrace The Force, including TV shows such as Andor and The Mandalorian — and one such gig is returning to Brisbane in 2023. Get ready to revisit the first film in the franchise's third main trilogy, the seventh movie in the saga all up, and the one that brought in Daisy Ridley (Chaos Walking), John Boyega (The Woman King), Oscar Isaac (Moon Knight) and Adam Driver (White Noise) alongside a host of returning faces: Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens.

We don't need to have a good feeling about what promises to be a force-filled evening of sound and vision, because it's been doing the rounds for a few years now. Still, on Saturday, April 22 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra will pick up their instruments to perform the corresponding score as The Force Awakens plays. The flick itself is already epic, and so is this experience.

QSO will bust out Williams' Oscar-nominated music live across two concerts, thanks to a 1.30pm matinee and a 7.30pm evening gig.

Down south, both A New Hope and Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back are both getting the orchestral treatment again, so cross your lightsaber-wielding fingers that they return to Brisbane after Star Wars: The Force Awakens in Concert.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens in Concert will play the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre on Saturday, April 22. For more information and to buy tickets, head to the QSO website.

Images: Lucasfilm.

Published on January 31, 2023 by Sarah Ward
Tap and select Add to Home Screen to access Concrete Playground easily next time. x