Pictures at an Exhibition: The Paintings of Bob Peak Los Angeles Film Orchestra & Leonard Slatkin

• Modest Mussorgsky (1839 - 1881): Pictures at an Exhibition:
• 1 Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition: Promenade I 01:47
• Maria Newman (b. 1962): Rhapsody for a Golden Age, 1937 Academy Players Directory:
• 2 Newman: Rhapsody for a Golden Age, 1937 Academy Players Directory 05:35
• Mychael Danna (b. 1958): Mother Teresa:
• 3 Danna: Mother Teresa 06:03
• Harry Gregson-Williams (b. 1961): Two Girls with Sparklers:
• 4 Gregson-Williams: Two Girls with Sparklers 04:27
• Ihab Darwish: Curva Grande:
• 5 Darwish: Curva Grande 05:16
• Jeff Beal (b. 1963): New York World’s Fair 1964-1965:
• 6 Beal: New York World’s Fair 1964-1965 04:46
• Marco Beltrami (b. 1966): The Spirit of Sport:
• 7 Beltrami: The Spirit of Sport: Jack Nicklaus 05:07
• Michael Abels (b. 1962): Unbound:
• 8 Abels: Unbound: Jesse Owens, 1936 Olympics 04:18
• Marc Shaiman (b. 1959): A Song About Audrey, Audrey Hepburn:
• 9 Shaiman: A Song About Audrey, Audrey Hepburn 03:04
• Don Davis (b. 1957): Golden Eagles:
• 10 Davis: Golden Eagles 05:07
• Bill Conti (b. 1942): The Great Bridge:
• 11 Conti: The Great Bridge: Brooklyn Bridge 100th Anniversary 08:00
• Total Runtime 53:30

Info zu Pictures at an Exhibition: The Paintings of Bob Peak

Born at the intersection of music, visual arts, and the world of cinema, this vibrant new program by producer Robert Townson brings together ten internationally renowned composers in world-premiere compositions. Pictures at an Exhibition: The Paintings of Bob Peak is modelled after the timeless concept of one of Mussorgsky’s greatest works and brought to life by the Los Angeles Film Orchestra, under the baton of the legendary conductor Leonard Slatkin.

Each one of the ten new movements is inspired by a unique piece from the oeuvre of the American illustrator Bob Peak (1927–1992), known for his posters for films including West Side Story, Superman, Apocalypse Now, and the original Star Trek movies, but also a prolific artist of commissions for Time magazine, the Olympics, and countless others.

What further sets Townson’s Pictures apart is that each of its movements has been conceived by a different and equally notable composer. The tour opens with the familiar “Promenade” from Mussorgsky’s suite, performed as a piano solo by Robert Thies. Thies is the only American pianist to win first prize in a Russian piano competition (the International Prokofiev Competition in St. Petersburg), since Van Cliburn’s famed triumph in Moscow in 1958. This “Promenade” then introduces Maria Newman’s Rhapsody for a Golden Age, written to capture Peak’s painting for the “1937 Academy Players Directory”. The piece is dedicated in loving memory to Maria’s father, the legendary Alfred Newman.

Robert Thies, piano (tracks 1, 2)
Azam Ali, vocals (track 3)
Marc Shaiman, vocals (track 9)
Los Angeles Film Orchestra
Leonard Slatkin, conductor

Bob Peak
is the award-winning American illustrator best known for his thirty-year contribution to the film industry, creating vibrant and unique designs for movie posters. Some of his most famous posters include West Side Story, Camelot, My Fair Lady, Hair, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Superman: The Movie, Apocalypse Now, Pennies from Heaven, Silverado, The Spy Who Loved Me and Excalibur. His paintings of Anwar Sadat, Mother Teresa, and Marlon Brando hang in the Smithsonian Institution’s permanent collection. He also received special commissions from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the United Nations and produced the iconic poster for the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Peak won more than 150 awards including honors from The Society of Illustrators, New York; The Artists Guild, New York; Art Directors Club of New York; Art Directors Club of Philadelphia; Advertising Club of Boston, and The Hollywood Reporter. In 1997 the Society of Illustrators elected Peak to its Hall of Fame. In 1983 Peak was asked to create a painting of New York’s Brooklyn Bridge, to celebrate the 100 th anniversary of construction. For the 1984 Olympics, the United States Postal Service commissioned Peak to design thirty stamps. He also created thirty-one watercolors depicting various sports events in the history of the Olympics for the book Golden Moments, commissioned by the United States government.

Leonard Slatkin
Internationally acclaimed conductor Leonard Slatkin is Music Director Laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Directeur Musical Honoraire of the Orchestre National de Lyon (ONL), Conductor Laureate of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO), Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria (OFGC), Artistic Consultant to the Las Vegas Philharmonic (LVP), and Artistic Advisor to the Nashville Symphony. He maintains a rigorous schedule of guest conducting and is active as a composer, author, and educator.

The 2025-26 season includes engagements with the National Symphony Orchestra (Ireland), Manhattan School of Music Symphony Orchestra, SLSO, USC Thornton Symphony, LVP, Taiwan Philharmonic, KBS Symphony Orchestra (Seoul), Gunma Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra (Tokyo), Nashville Symphony, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Warsaw Philharmonic, Franz Schubert Filharmonia (Barcelona), ONL, Prague Symphony Orchestra, Filarmonica George Enescu (Bucharest), OFGC, and Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin.

Slatkin has received six Grammy awards and 35 nominations. Naxos recently reissued Vox audiophile editions of his SLSO recordings featuring the works of Gershwin, Rachmaninov, and Prokofiev. Other Naxos recordings include Slatkin Conducts Slatkin—a compilation of pieces written by generations of his family—as well as works by Saint-Saëns, Ravel, Berlioz, Copland, Borzova, McTee, and Williams.

A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Slatkin also holds the rank of Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor. He has been awarded the Prix Charbonnier from the Federation of Alliances Françaises, Austria’s Decoration of Honor in Silver, and the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton. His debut book, Conducting Business (2012), for which he received the ASCAP Deems Taylor Special Recognition Award, was followed by Leading Tones (2017) and Classical Crossroads: The Path Forward for Music in the 21st Century (2021). His latest books are Eight Symphonic Masterworks of the Twentieth Century (spring 2024) and Eight Symphonic Masterworks of the Nineteenth Century (fall 2024), part of an ongoing series of essays that supplement the score-study process, published by Bloomsbury.

The Los Angeles Film Orchestra
is a premiere orchestra whose members consist of an all-star group of leading studio and concert musicians in Hollywood. The orchestra players can be heard on countless Hollywood blockbusters to award-winning films, TV projects and videogames.

Booklet für Pictures at an Exhibition: The Paintings of Bob Peak