Planet Earth Live Brings Nature Outdoors

By Alexander Hough in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 20, 2010 4:30PM

Remember this remarkable video? Now imagine seeing it on a giant HD screen backed by a full, live orchestra. Epic, right? Wednesday night the Grant Park Music Festival takes the BBC documentary Planet Earth out of your living room and into the great wide open of Millennium Park. The concert is part of the six-stop month-long Planet Earth Live tour that presents ninety minutes of highlights with live orchestral accompaniment. The distilled thirteen-part version will be structured around creatures rather than habitat, with movements devoted to fish, elephants, snow leopards, cranes, caribou, snow geese, and various predator-prey combinations. The documentary soundtrack’s composer George Fenton (his other credits include Gandhi and Groundhog Day, among many, many others) will be on hand to conduct the Grant Park Orchestra.

As always, the music will be clearly audible regardless of location around the concert area, although you may have to strategically position yourself, or at least avoid wine-induced naps, for an unobstructed view of the high-definition screen behind the orchestra. Worst case scenario, you can always watch the real planet Earth with your eyeballs, the highest definition camera of them all. Highlights of the alternate show include disoriented concertgoers trying to find their blankets after trips to the bathroom, pathetically transparent pleas for attention by motorcyclists roaring down Michigan Avenue, and bugs.

The show begins later than most Grant Park shows - 8:15 p.m., as opposed to 6:30 p.m. - so plan accordingly.

Wednesday at 8:15 p.m., Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, FREE