Elmer Bernstein - the concert celebrating a movie music legend

If you love the movies, then chances are you love the music of Elmer Bernstein.

Over an incredible 50-year career, the seminal film composer created the scores for over one hundred film and TV projects. We're talking vintage screen classics like The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Ten Commandments, Sweet Smell Of Success, Birdman Of Alcatraz, True Grit and The Man With The Golden Arm, plus modern masterworks like Airplane!, Stripes, Ghostbusters, Trading Places, My Left Foot and Far From Heaven - his final screen credit before his passing in 2004, aged 82.

From orchestral roof-raisers to jazzy toe-tappers, Bernstein was an inspired, eclectic and mercurial musical talent.

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Now a rather special live event, Elmer Bernstein: 50 Years Of Film Music, taking place this Wednesday, June 14th, at the National Concert Hall, celebrates the work of the great maestro, with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra playing a selection of classics from Bernstein's formidable filmography - all in, the man was Oscar nominated a whopping fourteen times for his compositions.

It gets even better - the orchestra on the night will be conducted by Elmer's son (and long-time collaborator) Peter, an acclaimed composer in his own right, and acting as MC for the evening will be another true Hollywood great, director John Landis, who collaborated with Elmer Bernstein on many of his classic comedies.

"I knew Elmer for quite a while," says Landis, "because Peter and I went to school together - in fact, Elmer took us to see The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl, in 1965! Later, when I made Animal House, which was a movie for Universal Studios, it was like my first real movie instead of a tiny independent. It came time to do the music, and the head of the music department at Universal, this gruff old guy said, 'Who do you want to get to compose the score?' And I said, "I was thinking of Elmer Bernstein," and I'll never forget it. He looked at me and he said, 'Elmer Bernstein won't return your call!' And I just thought, 'F**k you.' (laughs) I called Elmer. He actually ended up scoring seven or eight of my features."

Bernstein's work with John Landis in the '70s and '80s introduced the composer to a whole new audience, via classics like An American Werewolf In London, Trading Places and (Landis's personal favourite) Three Amigos! - he even contributed to the scores for Landis's musical The Blues Brothers and his groundbreaking music video for Michael Jackson's Thriller.

"Movie music is a very unique skill, says Landis, "because music is used for many things in movies. It's used to speed things up, or slow things down, or always to heighten the emotion - make it more exciting, make it more suspenseful... There's so much you can do with music in a film and sometimes movie music, when heard without the picture it was intended for, it doesn't always work out of context. But when it comes to Elmer, he wrote so much music that can be played in the concert hall. When you hear the suites from Magnificent Seven, or Ten Commandments, I mean these are major orchestral works, you know?"

Director John Landis - coming to Dublin for Elmer Bernstein tribute

The celebration at the National Concert Hall (marking what would have been his 95th birthday) will cover Bernstein's entire career, including the Irish film projects he worked on for director Jim Sheridan, My Left Foot and The Field. The composer had an abiding fondness for Ireland, and visited on numerous occasions - leaving his son Peter with many colourful memories. "I was 16 or 17, I think this would have been 1968, and my brother and my father and I were in Dublin," he says. "I think we were staying with (future film producer) Noel Pearson at the time, and Noel was managing The Dubliners. So, we were out with them and somehow it slipped out that I had never spent a night out drinking, which was true. The band members decided that that was a situation that needed to be remedied, and my father, and Noel, and my younger brother took off with big smiles on their faces. And I don't have any recollection of the rest of the evening (laughs)."

Years later, Bernstein agreed to score a movie for Noel Pearson if he ever got one made - that score turned out to be My Left Foot, which won two Oscars in 1989. "Noel wanted to stage a film music concert with my father and Henry Mancini in Dublin, and he booked them but he couldn't find a theater. when he did find a theater, the only one that he could find (The Gaiety) was only available at midnight. And so the story goes, he called my dad and said, "Okay. We have a concert, curtain goes up at midnight," - and my father says, "This is a joke," and Noel says, "No, and if Henry Mancini asks about it, tell him it's an old Irish tradition."

Trying to pick a favourite Elmer Bernstein score is a near-impossible task, given the sheer range of his abilities, and breadth of his filmography - to one generation, he's the go-to guy for widescreen epics, classic westerns and war movies, to another he soundtracked most of the most iconic comedies for the '80s. That's where his genius lies, in his versatility, coupled with his own formidable musical chops - a fine pianist, Bernstein was a child prodigy, and studied under the legendary Aaron Copland.

"He had such a spectacular career in all these different genres, working with all kinds of directors on so many different films," says Landis. "Elmer's the only person who was nominated for an Academy Award in the '50s, the '60s, the '70s, the '80s and the '90s. He had a remarkable career, and became fairly successful very young - I mean he scored The Ten Commandments when he was 27. He really did work with extraordinary people and had a huge impact, and so diverse. He was famous for his jazz scores, for The Man with the Golden Arm, Sweet Smell of Success, and then I think he did ten John Wayne westerns."

The last word goes to his son, who will pay fitting tribute to his father at the National Concert Hall by weilding the baton, and celebrating their shared life in music. "I think if you asked him how he thought of himself," says Peter Bernstein, "in terms of his career longevity, I think he would have said 'I'm a film composer who gets up every day and writes music for the scene that I have to do, and then tries to figure out what my next assignment will be.' He was just very focused on moving forward, and that's what kept him going. He told me, at the end of his life, that he he would miss the creative process, and I think that's what drove him more than anything else - being able to create."

Elmer Bernstein: 50 Years Of Film Music, Wednesday, June 14th, National Concert Hall, Dublin - details and booking information here.

Elmer Bernstein - the concert celebrating a movie music legend

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