Elf in Concert: Digital Program
Elf in Concert
with the Minnesota Orchestra
December 20-22, 2024: Purchase Tickets
“ELF”
Directed by JON FAVREAU
Produced by KENT ALTERMAN, CALE BOYTER, JULY WIXSON DARMODY, TOBY EMMERICH and JIMMY MILLER
Written by DAVID BERENBAUM
Starring
WILL FERRELL
JAMES CAAN
BOB NEWHART
EDWARD ASNER
MARY STEENBURGEN
ZOOEY DESCHANEL
Music by JOHN DEBNEY
Cinematography by GREG GARDINER
Edited by DAN LEBENTAL
Produced by New Line Cinema & Guy Walks Into a Bar Productions
Distributed by New Line Cinema
Today’s concert lasts about 2 hours, including a 20-minute intermission. The program is a presentation of the complete film Elf with a live performance of the film’s entire score, including music played by the orchestra during the end credits. Out of respect for the musicians and your fellow audience members, please stay seated until the end of the credits.
THANK YOU
The Movies & Music series is presented by U.S. Bank.
Ron Spigelman, conductor
A native of Australia, conductor Ron Spigelman is an honors graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, London. He has been the Associate Conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Fort Worth Symphony, Music Director of the Fort Worth Dallas Ballet, San Angelo Symphony, Texas Chamber Orchestra, Springfield Symphony (MO), and the Lake Placid Sinfonietta (NY). He has also served as Principal Pops Conductor of the Fort Worth and Syracuse Symphony.
Guest conducting has included appearances with the St. Louis, Baltimore, Utah, Dallas, Oregon, Kansas City, Phoenix, Columbus, and North Carolina Symphony orchestras, as well as the Rochester and Naples Philharmonic.
He has conducted Symphonic, Ballet, Opera, Musical Theatre and Pops plus over 20 live film concerts including Pirates of the Caribbean, Fantasia, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, E.T, Home Alone, Polar Express, Elf, Nightmare Before Christmas, Psycho and seven of the Harry Potter films. Guest artists he has accompanied include Horacio Gutierrez, Rachel Barton Pine, Richard Stoltzman and Pops artists including Marvin Hamlisch, Peter Paul and Mary, James Taylor, Ben Folds, Kenny G, Vanessa Williams, Leslie Odom Jr., Gladys Knight, and Arturo Sandoval.
Other career highlights include the world premiere of Pegasus by Lowell Liebermann with the Dallas Symphony in 2001, his Carnegie Hall debut with the Buffalo Philharmonic in 2004, and the world premiere recording of Sylvan by Michael Torke which was commissioned for the Lake Placid Sinfonietta’s centennial in 2017.
Ron lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma with his wife Laura, they have a combined 6 children. In addition to his conducting career, he is pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Family and Human Development with a minor in Counseling and Applied Psychology at Arizona State University.
John Debney, composer
John Debney is the ultimate film music character actor. In equal demand for family films such as Jingle Jangle, Come Away, and Elf, as he is for adventure films like Iron Man 2, the Oscar-nominated composer also scored the powerful and poignant The Passion of the Christ. Debney is an agile jack-of-all-genres, sci-fi adventure (ORVILLE), composing for comedies (Bruce Almighty), horror (Dream House) and romance (Valentine’s Day) with the same confidence and panache. Debney is also known for his work in such films as Princess Diaries, Sin City, Liar Liar, Spy Kids, No Strings Attached, The Emperor’s New Groove, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Hocus Pocus. Debney’s work also includes Disney’s The Jungle Book directed by Jon Favreau, Fox’s Ice Age: Collision Course directed by Mike Thurmeier, and Twentieth Century Fox’s award-winning musical The Greatest Showman starring Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron. Debney’s most recent films include The Beach Bum starring Matthew McConaughey and directed by Harmony Korine, the Warner Bros. comedy feature Isn’t It Romantic starring Rebel Wilson, Paramount Pictures’ family adventure feature Dora and the Lost City of Gold, and Bleecker Street’s biopic Brian Banks. Upcoming for Debney is Come Away directed by Brenda Chapman and starring Angelina Jolie.
Born in Glendale, California, Debney’s professional life began after he studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts, when he went to work writing music and orchestrating for Disney Studios and various television series. He won his first Emmy in 1990 for the main theme for The Young Riders, and his career soon hit a gallop. Since then he has won three more Emmys (Sea Quest DSV), and been nominated for a total of six (most recently in 2012 for his work on the Kevin Costner western miniseries Hatfields & McCoys). His foray into videogame scoring—2007’s Lair—resulted in a BAFTA nomination and a Best Videogame Score award from The International Film Music Critics Association.
Debney has collaborated with acclaimed directors as diverse as Robert Rodriguez, Garry Marshall, Mel Gibson, the Farrelly Brothers, Jon Favreau, Jim Sheridan, Ivan Reitman, Peter Chelsom, Rob Cohen, Brian Robbins, Tom Shadyac, Sam Raimi, Adam Shankman, Howie Deutch, Renny Harlin, Peter Hyams and Kenny Ortega. He was nominated by the Academy for his Passion of the Christ score. Inspired by that score, he then created The Passion Oratorio, performed in 2015 in the historic Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, Spain in front of 6,000 people during Holy Week. In 2005, Debney was the youngest recipient of ASCAP’s Henry Mancini Career Achievement Award.
“If I’m doing my job well,” says Debney, “I need to feel it. I really try to make sure that whatever I’m doing— even if it’s a comedy—that I’m feeling it and feeling either humor or the pathos or the dramatic impact of what I’m seeing. That’s the way I approach it.”
