“Avatar”  is a 2009 American epic science fiction film directed, written, produced, and co-edited by James Cameron, and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sigourney Weaver. The film is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are colonizing Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system, in order to mine the mineral unobtanium, a room-temperature superconductor. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na’vi – a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The film’s title refers to a genetically engineered Na’vi body with the mind of a remotely located human that is used to interact with the natives of Pandora.

Composer James Horner scored the film, his third collaboration with Cameron after “Aliens” and “Titanic”. Horner recorded parts of the score with a small chorus singing in the alien language Na’vi in March 2008. He also worked with Wanda Bryant, an ethnomusicologist, to create a music culture for the alien race.. The first scoring sessions were planned to take place in early 2009. During production, Horner promised Cameron that he would not work on any other project and reportedly worked on the score from four in the morning till ten at night throughout the process. He stated in an interview, “Avatar has been the most difficult film I have worked on and the biggest job I have undertaken”. Horner composed the score as two different scores merged into one. He first created a score that reflected the Na’vi way of sound and then combined it with a separate “traditional” score to drive the film. British singer Leona Lewis was chosen to sing the theme song for the film, called “I See You”.

A nine minute suite from James Horner’s score was performed in concert from the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vienna the year 2013. The composer was among the attendees. Conducting the orchestra was David Newman and the performance of the avatar suite was magnificent! So, enjoy “Avatar” in concert…

Concert:

Trailer:

– with info taken from wikipedia.

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