Hollywood Bowl Orchestra
The current iteration of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra was formed in 1990 by Ernest Fleischmann and John Mauceri, in partnership with Philips Records, to augment the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s summer season at the Bowl. We recorded 14 CDs for Philips from 1991 to 1996.
The standard orchestral heavy lifting was and is done by the Phil. The HBO is focused on popular music, Broadway, film music and concert music by composers usually associated with those genres. We would usually perform a semi-staged musical each summer, occasionally an opera. We toured Japan every other year for a while and toured Brazil once.
I loved this gig! What I loved most was we treated every genre we performed seriously and with respect; the HBO recorded catalogue reflects that. That is not always the case with other orchestras. I was there from day one until I retired in 2014. Here are some tracks we recorded:
- Arnold Schoenberg : Fanfare for a Bowl Concert, on motifs from Gurrelieder.
- John Williams: The Witches of Eastwick – The Devil’s Dance (Denis Wick Straight Mute!)
- Jerry Goldsmith: Main Theme & March of the Klingons – Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
- Eric Korngold: The Adventures Of Robin Hood – Battle, Victory & Epilogue
- Franz Waxman/John Mauceri: – Sunset Boulevard
- Max Steiner: King Kong – Overture
- Alfred Newman: How to Marry a Millionaire – Overture
- That’s Entertainment! III – Overture
- Irving Berlin: Patriotic Overture
- Miklós Rózsa: Madame Bovary – Waltz
- Strauss II, Arr. D. Tiomkin – Main Title and Wiener Blut Waltzes from The Great Waltz
- Richard Rodgers: Carousel Suite
- Richard Rodgers: Slaughter on 10th Avenue
- Leonard Bernstein: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
- Harold Arlen: The Wizard Of Oz – Concert Suite
- Authur Bliss: Things to Come Suite, ed. John Mauceri
- Duke Ellington: Harlem
In November 1996, the HBO traveled to Brazil and performed two public concerts in Rio de Janeiro and Saõ Paulo. Huell Howser accompanied us on this brief tour and, shortly thereafter, broadcast this on his PBS show, Visiting. Huell managed to stick the camera in my face ca. 17:55.
On August 22, 1998, KCOP Television broadcast The Great American Concert. John Mauceri won his second Emmy as “On Camera Performer” for this live broadcast.