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WARREN -- Macauley Culkin's Kevin Arnold won't be "Home Alone" at Powers Auditorium this weekend. He'll have an entire orchestra and a chorus to keep him company.
The Youngstown Symphony Orchestra with guest conductor Erik Ochsner will perform John Williams's score live while the 1990 comedy hit is shown at Powers on Friday and Saturday.
Ochsner has conducted about 20 orchestra and movie concerts, but this will be his first time doing it for "Home Alone," which earned more than $285 million domestically and was the top grossing comedy of all time when it was released.
"It's nice to come to an old friend, John Williams," Ochsner said during a telephone interview. "I've done four of his 'Star Wars' films, I've done his 'E.T.' before. One of the magical things that I think good composers are able to do is be a chameleon. They adapt their sound world and also what I call the sound palette, you know when painters hold that little wooden board in their fingers and go, 'I'll put a little blue on here and a little bit of this.' Composers and orchestrators have to do the same thing. Are they going to use piccolos or celestes and how many are we going to use? John Williams fits right in there."
Ochsner started to prepare by watching and researching the film itself, the story of a young boy, Kevin, who accidentally is left behind by his parents in the hectic rush to gather the relatives and make it to the airport in time for a family vacation. Kevin has to fend for himself and fend off the "Wet Bandits," who have plans to burglarize what they expected to be an empty house.
Despite his research, Ochsner was surprised Tuesday to learn the movie has a prominent local connection -- "Home Alone" was directed by Champion native and 1976 John F. Kennedy High School graduate Chris Columbus.
"That's amazing," he said.
After watching and researching the movie, Ochsner's next step is studying the score, in this case all 450 pages of it. One of the things he does is create what he calls an "instrumentation matrix," a spreadsheet that lets him see what instrumentation is required for every single scene.
That information also helps him decide how he will structure his rehearsals with the orchestra and the chorus today in preparation for Friday's and Saturday's performances.
The score for "Home Alone" differs from Williams' action-adventure scores, although both feature classical influences, something Williams often has cited. Ochsner said Darth Vader's theme from "Star Wars" echoes and doubles Frederic Chopin's funeral march, while one of the movements in "Home Alone" reminds him of the work of Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev.
Williams' score also is structured around the physical, slapstick humor that fills the movie. Ochsner said the score often helps set up the joke and then pauses, "Waiting for the pranks to happen," the conductor said.
This weekend's performances are the first of three concerts Ochsner will be doing with YSO as it continues its search for a permanent replacement to music director and conductor Randall Craig Fleischer, who died in 2020.
Ochsner will conduct a masterworks concert on March 10 at Stambaugh Auditorium with a program he created called "Unknown & Gorgeous: River and Iron," which will draw on the regional proximity to the Mahoning River and the Valley's steel industry history as well as the conductor's Finnish-American roots.
He also will be the guest conductor on April 26 at Powers when the orchestra plays a pops concert with Youngstown band The Vindys.
"I think it's public knowledge they're down to two candidates for music director," Ochsner said. "However it turns out, I do hope to come back. I'd like to continue to work with the orchestra. If that means as music director, great. If that means as a visiting conductor, I hope to do that."
If you go …
WHAT: The movie "Home Alone" with live accompaniment by the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra with Erik Ochsner, guest conductor
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday and 2:30 p.m. Saturday
WHERE: Powers Auditorium, 260 W. Federal St., Youngstown
HOW MUCH: Tickets range from $18 to $63 and are available online at experienceyourarts.org and by calling 330-259-9651.