“This is not just a concert, it is an act of love, a concrete gesture towards those less fortunate, an invitation to reflect on what unites us as human beings.” – Hans Zimmer, 67, multiple award-winning film score composer

By Robert Moynihan

Award-winning film score composer Hans Zimmer with Robert Moynihan at St. Peter’s in Rome December 6, 2024.

Not a single seat was empty on the evening of Saturday, December 7, in a crowded Paul VI Audience Hall inside Vatican City. Some 3,000 poor people were the special “guests of honor” among the total of about 7,000 people — full capacity — who packed the hall.

The event was the fifth annual “Concert for the Poor,” a concert performed with the poor as “honored guests” in the Vatican, featuring the German-born musical genius Hans Zimmer, 67, and the brilliant Chinese-born American cellist from San Diego, Tina Guo, 39.

Zimmer has scored more than 500 film projects and been honored with two Academy Awards®, three Golden Globes®, four Grammys®, an American Music Award, and a Tony® Award.

His film scores include Dune:Part One, No Time to Die, Gladiator,  As Good as It Gets,  Rain Man, The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, Thelma and Louise, The Lion King, The Last Samurai, 12 Years A Slave, and Dunkirk.

Tina Guo, Grammy nominee and Female Artist of the Year at the BRIT Awards, is one of the most recorded solo cellists of all time in film, TV and video game soundtracks. She has also performed as a soloist with symphony orchestras throughout the world.

Inspirations

All artists have their muses.

Dante, Italy’s and Europe’s greatest poet, had his Beatrice, who inspired him to write his epic poem stretching from hell to heaven, with purgatory in between: The Divine Comedy, which has lasted now more than 700 years.

Hans Zimmer told us at the Vatican press conference December 6 that he was inspired to write his hundreds of film scores by a fictitious woman named Doris, a product of his imagination “who lived in Bradford, England, outside of London” – a place he played in the 1980s — “with two children, leading a very hard life.”

“She’s of a certain age. She’s got two boys, doesn’t have a husband… She works really hard to try to make ends meet. And at the weekend…she plunks down her hard-earned money… Just for two hours, she wants to have an experience that she wouldn’t [otherwise] have in her normal life.”

Tina Guo, the brilliant Chinese-born American cellist

And Tina Guo told us how she was inspired by her parents, who made her practice playing the cello up to seven hours a day, until her own being of flesh and blood, she said, virtually merges into the resonating wood and strings of her cello, creating art.

She called it a “family tradition.”

“My father is a cellist and my mother is a violinist…when I moved to America, being around six years old, I tried violin for one year. I was horrible!…

“My dad said, ‘Okay, maybe you could try the cello.’ … it came to me much more naturally. I progressed much faster, so that actually helped in the many, many hours of practicing and training, which I’m grateful for now.

“When I was growing up, of course, it wasn’t fun.”

The Concert  

The mood was one of rapt attention.

The listeners at the concert seemed to be expecting some new insight, some new revelation, about themselves and their place in the world.

Consider the dominant role of Hollywood in the global “entertainment industry,” spinning tales and sharing dreams through films seen and reflected upon by billions — and as a leading Hollywood composer, Zimmer’s role is itself a dominant one.

And yet, this dominant figure came to Rome — came to play his music on a stage where the Pope normally sits to give his catechesis, beneath an imposing sculpture of the risen Christ, next to a simple manger scene, not far from a Christmas tree, in the presence of 3,000 poor people.

And all framed by the resurrected Christ, rising above, and the humble manger scene, off to the right, and the little lighted Christmas tree, as the choir is singing, and the musicians playing, giving their music to us in space and time, under heaven.

 

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