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Film scores can sometimes register as so much sonic wallpaper, a barely noticeable backdrop to what's happening onscreen. But the score that renowned jazz drummer Antonio Sanchez contributed to Alejandro González Iñárritu's Best Picture–winning Birdman—a gorgeously realized series of improvised solo performances—is a major exception: As our review pointed out, those beats are absolutely integral to the film's kinetic, at times frenetic pacing. In one of several high-profile 2015 Oscars flaps, Sanchez's contribution was deemed ineligible for a Best Original Score nomination, since the film also featured a conventional classical score. ([Cough] Bullshit. [Cough]) The good news is that invaluable local classical-and-beyond concert presenter Wordless Music is giving the drummer his due, via a Birdman screening and live Sanchez solo performance, taking place Saturday, April 4, at the UWS's Concert Hall at New York Society for Ethical Culture.
Tickets for the event—a New York premiere—go on sale here at 10am on Friday, March 6. As Wordless puts it, perhaps over-modestly, tickets "will not last very long, we suspect." A screening of the Best Picture winner, featuring a live performance of 2014's flat-out coolest score? Uh, yeah—we'd tend to agree.