John Powell has described Sibelius as “the key” to his score for How to Train Your Dragon — an unusual starting point for an animated film, but audible in every cue: Nordic grandeur beneath Celtic folk instrumentation, the compositional DNA of a score that earned an Academy Award nomination. On Wednesday, January 13, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra performs that score live, synchronized to the 2010 DreamWorks film as it plays in HD, at West Herr Auditorium Theatre in Rochester.
About the Show
RPO Presents How To Train Your Dragon is a live film concert in which the RPO performs Powell’s complete score — 72 minutes of orchestral writing across the film’s 93-minute runtime — in real time as the film screens. The orchestra replaces the pre-recorded track, meaning the score is heard with live breath behind it in this room.
Powell’s score was his first DreamWorks animated film composed solely by him, and the compositional specificity is evident throughout. He drew from Sibelius and Danish symphonist Carl Nielsen for structural scale; for warmth he leaned into his own Scottish heritage and the Icelandic post-rock of Sigur Rós (Jónsi, the band’s lead vocalist, contributes the closing song, “Sticks & Stones”). Bagpipes, penny whistles, and dulcimers sit inside a full orchestral ensemble that also calls for strings, woodwinds, brass, harp, piano, and synthesizer. Director Jeffrey Katzenberg pushed toward warmer Irish and Scottish folk elements during production; Powell incorporated them without losing the colder Nordic center of gravity. The result earned an Academy Award nomination at the 83rd Academy Awards, losing to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s score for The Social Network.
Powell built themes around story elements rather than individual characters, letting the same melodic material migrate across emotional contexts. In a live performance setting, that structural flexibility becomes something a room feels before it consciously maps. The production includes options for a live SATB choir and soprano soloist.
Venue & Logistics
West Herr Auditorium Theatre is at 885 East Main Street in Rochester, inside the West Herr Performing Arts Center, a hall built in 1930 as a Masonic Temple and acquired by the Rochester Broadway Theatre League in 2023. It is one of the larger touring venues serving the Finger Lakes region, currently undergoing renovation through Project RestOURation. The evening begins at 7:00 p.m.
Tickets
No ticket price was available from sources at the time of publication. Presale is currently active; an RBTL Parking add-on at 945 East Main is available through the same checkout. Get Tickets