I attended the show Friday night JOHN WILLIAMS: MAESTRO OF THE MOVIES and found it to be very misleading and thus disappointing. While we greatly enjoyed the second half of the show where John Williams was conducting a selection of his scores, we were very disappointed to see that the scores in the first half were not all by John Williams. Indeed, it is very clear that Mr. Williams wasn't going to conduct the whole concert himself, but the title and the description suggest that it is a night of John Williams' work with some of the concert being conducted by David Newman.
When I saw in the program that the first half only included one score from Mr. Williams, I was very disappointed. I said as much out loud and people around me were surprised and disappointed as well to discover that the whole night was not full of scores from Mr. Williams. I know in past performances the whole night has been only his scores. We all understand that it is very hard work and taxing to conduct a full program, which is why we understood it as being a night where Mr. Newman would conduct some of the performance with Mr. Williams conducting his special selection of scores.
The description "Following the record-breaking success of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, incomparable composer John Williams returns to the Hollywood Bowl to conduct music from the new score, along with other favorite themes from a galaxy far, far away. Bowl movie night maestro David Newman conducts a thrilling first half of film score classics, including a selection of clips shown on the big screen." does not specify that the first half would include pieces NOT from Mr. Williams. With a musical score history such as his, it is easy to be lead to believe that the "film score classics" would be from his work but led by Mr. Newman, saving the Star Wars selections for Mr. Williams to conduct.
A more appropriate title for this performance would have been Maestros of the Movies: Featuring John Williams, with the first half being a selection of film score classics that seemed to only be sponsored by Paramount. But with the given title of "John Williams: Maestro of the Movies" I think you can see how not only my group, but other Hollywood Bowl attendees around me, were disappointed to see that the whole night was not filled with scores from Mr. Williams.
This is the first time I have felt mislead and disappointed when attending a Hollywood Bowl concert. I hope that future performance descriptions can be more specific with what to expect, especially when two composers are sharing a show with the scores of the headliner only being featured for half of the show.
