The Oppenheimer: Live in Concert event will include a special introduction by Oppenheimer writer-director-producer Christopher Nolan, whose films, including Tenet, Dunkirk, Interstellar, Inception and The Dark Knight trilogy, have amassed more than $6 billion worldwide and have been awarded 11 Oscars® and 36 nominations, including two Best Picture nominations. Oppenheimer has been nominated for 13 Critics Choice Awards and eight Golden Globe Awards, including for Picture, Director, and Original Score.
Since the theatrical release of Oppenheimer on July 21, composer Ludwig Göransson’s instrumental theme from the film, “Can You Hear the Music,” has shattered streaming records, earning nearly 1.7 billion views on TikTok and has been streamed more than 60 million times across all digital streaming platforms (DSPs). Since the film’s release, the Oppenheimer soundtrack has become the top catalog-selling album for Universal Pictures’ entire catalog, with a jaw-dropping 175 million streams across all DSPs as of December 8. In November 2023, the film’s music earned three Grammy nominations, for best score soundtrack for visual media, best instrumental composition and best arrangement of an instrumental or a cappella track.
Over the course of his career, Göransson has earned an Academy Award® for his music for 2018’s score for Black Panther and an Oscar® nomination for the original song “Lift Me Up” from 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. He has earned three Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year for Childish Gambino’s hit “This is America.” Göransson has also been awarded two Emmys for his music for the series The Mandalorian. His film credits include the scores for the Creed films and Nolan’s acclaimed film, Tenet.
Anthony Parnther, who served as conductor for the recording of the Oppenheimer film score, is the music director of the San Bernadino Symphony Orchestra and boasts a versatile career spanning symphonic, opera, film scores and popular music. With an international reputation, he has showcased his conducting prowess with renowned orchestras for major film and television productions, including Avatar: The Way of Water, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Nope.
Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s record-shattering epic thriller, propels audiences into the paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it. With America locked in a devastating war, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer becomes the central figure in a pulse-pounding race against the Nazis to develop the first atomic bomb. Written for the screen and directed by Nolan, the film is produced by Emma Thomas, Charles Roven and Nolan. The film stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, Golden Globe winner Emily Blunt, Oscar® winner Matt Damon, Oscar® nominee Robert Downey, Jr., Academy Award® nominee Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Oscar® winner Casey Affleck, Oscar® winner Rami Malek and Oscar® winning filmmaker and actor Kenneth Branagh.
Doors open at 6 p.m. PDT and the concert begins at 7 p.m. PDT. Tickets are $13 and are available now at roycehall.org. Attendees are advised that no food or beverages are permitted inside the theater, but light concessions will be available for purchase at the doors beginning at 6 p.m. PDT and during intermission at 9 p.m. PDT.
Built in 1929 by architect David Allison, UCLA’s Royce Hall is modeled after Milan’s Basilica di Sant’Ambrogio, constructed in the tenth and eleventh centuries. A symbol of both intellectual and artistic excellence, Royce Hall functions not only as a monument to Los Angeles’ rich cultural past, but also as a portal to the future.
The extraordinary history of performing arts presentation in Royce Hall is rooted in the late 1930s, when George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Arnold Schoenberg and Jimmy Dorsey’s Band all performed in Royce Hall. Since then, the list of illustrious artists who have graced Royce Hall’s stage reads like a Who’s Who of performing arts in the 20th and 21st centuries, including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, Twyla Tharp, Frank Zappa, Mikhail Baryshnikov, The Philip Glass Ensemble and Meredith Monk to name a few.