Review: NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS at Grand Rapids Symphony Brings Halloween Classic to Life to Celebrate 25th Anniversary of Film!

The Halloween classic Nightmare Before Christmas made its appearance a few weeks ahead of the holiday this past Saturday night in Grand Rapids to kick off the Grand Rapids Symphonicboom Series.

The score was brought to life by the symphony located right on stage under the screen who played the music from the movie from played beginning to end for the audience to enjoy as they watched the film live. The amazing work of the symphony, under the conducting of John Varineau, brought the music alive to every seat in the crowd. Every piece, from the strings to the brass to percussion blended very well, not only with each other, but with the voices from the film. This was another unique thing to this type of series cosplay (costumes) are allowed and encouraged for the Symphonicboom shows.

For those who are not familiar with the movie, it's about the Pumpkin King, Jack Skelton, who gets sick of the same scare routine every year at Halloween. In searching for something better, he tries to bring the spirit of Christmas back to Halloween town, but it can't be done without bumps in the road. By doing so, he puts the job of Santa and Santa, himself, at risk. This was played out very well in the music by the Grand Rapids Symphony.

If you have not had the opportunity to see a movie score played live, I encourage you to attend these other shows in the Symphonicboom series. The following movies are being done this season:

Home Alone on November 29th, 2018

Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire February 1st and 2nd, 2019

Pirates of The Caribbean: The Curse of The Black Pearl March 8th-10th, 2019

The symphony also offers other great shows this holiday season including Holiday Pops December 6th-9th and Cirque de Noel December 19th.

For all things Grand Rapids Symphony go to: https://www.grsymphony.org

Ticket information for all these fun family friendly shows can be found at: https://www.grsymphony.org/gr-pops

Connect with Grand Rapids Symphony on Twitter at https://twitter.com/grsymphony, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/grsymphony, and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/grsymphony