Life on Our Planet in Concert at The Bridgewater Hall
Johnny James, Managing Editor
Natural history and live orchestral music combine as Manchester Camerata help bring Netflix’s Life on Our Planet to life at The Bridgewater Hall.
Executive-produced by Steven Spielberg and narrated by the voice of God AKA Morgan Freeman, Life on Our Planet is an eight-part series about life’s epic battle to conquer, adapt and survive on planet Earth. Today there are 20 million species on our planet, yet what we see is just a snapshot in time; 99% of earth’s inhabitants are lost to our deep past. And the deep past is what this series looks towards.
Organised around the five mass extinction events that have shaped the planet – plus the sixth we’re facing today – the series brings creatures known only from fossils to life in dramatic, photo-real fashion. These stunning scenes are presented alongside cutting-edge natural history sequences, showcasing the unique evolutionary advantages modern species have inherited from their ancestors in ways that have never been seen before.
If you’ve watched any of the series on Netflix you’ll know how integral the music is to the unfolding of the story. It’s written by Grammy-winning Scottish composer Lorne Balfe, a gifted storytelling composer whose work has featured in everything from Top Gun Maverick to The Crown.
Balfe’s score for this series features a multitude of distinct motifs reflecting different creatures and the journey of evolution. Meticulous research led his decisions over instrumentation. For example the prominent use of the organ – an instrument that makes sound when air is pumped through it – is intended to conjure the idea of breath and life. Elsewhere the score includes some of the oldest known instruments, such as bone flutes found in caves, which we hear alongside state-of-the-art electronic production.
The event at The Bridgewater Hall will see the series condensed into its most essential 90 minutes, tracing our lineage across an epic, four-billion-year story – from the first single-celled life form to the first animals to move out from the sea and onto land, to the first creatures to take flight. Bringing the drama to life on stage, the Camerata will perform a score that connects you more deeply with the story, with each evolutionary era, each creature, given its own, awe-inspiring sound.
Promising to leave you with a deeper respect for our planet – its past, its present and its increasingly uncertain future – this event is must for any lover of natural history or live orchestral music.
