Orchestra deserves an Oscar...

Hooray for Hollywood!

The Halle’s tribute to the music of the movies was a great crowdpleaser.

Conductor Stephen Bell led us from 1930’s “Casablanca” to the latest Bond movie’s theme from Adele.

And the Halle showed how the music plays such an integral part in blockbuster films — without being distracted by the screen we heard the sweeping, brash, romantic and sometimes tearjerking themes in their own right.

The pounding brass of composer John Williams’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark”underscored Indiana Jones’s daredevil stunts, while Marvin Hamlisch’s “The Way We Were” recalled the 1974 bittersweet romance of the same name.

Vocalist Anna-Jane Casey, from Bury, contributed vocals for “My Heart Will Go On” from “Titanic”, “Skyfall”, and “Windmills of Your Mind”, Michel Legrand’s theme from “The Thomas Crown Affair”.

John Barry sweeping theme from “Out of Africa” was a change from more of his famous James Bond music.

Saturday’s concert was the last in the Halle’s summer pops programmes, and Bell, Casey and the orchestra offered 17 pieces and a couple of encores, with several works from multiple Oscar-winner John WIlliams.

His successes include the Indiana Jones films, and he created the music for the magical flying sequence in “ET: the Extra Terrestrial”in 1982, “Star Wars” from 1977 to 2002, and “Jurassic Park” in 1993.

And who would have thought the Bridgewater Hall would ring to the Halle playing, the conductor asking “Who you Gonna Call?”, and the audience shouting “Ghostbusters”?