Wagnerian Techniques in Film Scores: Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings

Wagnerian Techniques in Film Scores:  The Motivic Structure of Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings

In his decades-long career as a musician, Doug Adams has remained in-demand as a performer, a composer/arranger, an author, and a lecturer.  He was selected by Howard Shore to observe and document his work on The Lord of the Rings films – a score performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, eventually exceeding 13 hours, and consistently cited as one of the best film scores ever written.  Adams subsequently spent just under ten years writing the book, The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films. He joins the Wagner Society to analyze and compare the use of motives as a structural component in Wagner and in Shore.  What if Wagner had the opportunity to score a modern film?

The program will be preceded by a brief Annual Membership Meeting. The Meeting is being held in January, rather than later in the year as previously, as a result of a recent change to the Society’s fiscal year end. The purpose of the Annual Meeting is to elect the 2025-26 Board of Directors and the transaction of such other business as may properly come before the meeting. Your vote is needed! Members who cannot attend in person may send in (by mail or electronically, returning it to arrive no later than noon Tuesday, January 7, 20254) the form (sent by postal mail and online here) to designate a proxy.

The event will be followed by a social hour with refreshments, and livestreamed (viewable up to 36 hours after the start of the event). WSNY Members will receive livestream link automatically by e-mail; no need to pre-register.

Accessibility: The Opera America building has ground-level entry with elevators to the 7th floor.  Wheelchair accessible; modular seating will be arranged to accommodate wheelchairs and walkers. Handicap-accessible restrooms are available on the same floor. The venue is located on the west side of 7th Avenue between 28th-29th Streets, closer to 29th Street. Sidewalk curb cuts at the 29th Street corner are uneven; for easier access and tactile paving enter from the 28th Street corner (at the downtown #1 subway station).