Danny Elfman is a multi-talented musician and composer who started his career as the leader of the Los Angeles world music/performance art ensemble Oingo Boingo, taking over for his older brother Richard. In the 1980’s, Elfman began pursuing a parallel career composing music for film and television, scoring 16 Tim Burton films, the theme for The Simpsons, with its ingenious choral opening and manic beat, and, most recently, the score for the three Fifty Shades of Gray films. But Elfman has also dabbled in writing symphonic music, sounding a bit like Mason Bates or John Adams at times; Bartók at others. And we have a chance to hear those efforts at Stanford, when the Stanford Symphony performs the US premiere of Elfman’s violin concerto Eleven Eleven, a co-commission by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Stanford Live. John Mauceri conducts, and violinist Sandy Cameron will be the soloist, as she was for the world premiere in Czechoslovakia. Mauceri leads Elfman’s new piece March 10 and 11 at Bing Hall. Details here.
Danny Elfman's Genre Defying Music at Stanford
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