Under composer Justin Hurwitz’s baton, a full orchestra and jazz ensemble accompany a screening of La La Land at Radio City Music Hall. (Credit: Crystal Hu)
“Ba da ba da – ba da da ba ba…” The iconic jazz strain of “Another Day of Sun” erupted, transforming the congested Los Angeles highway into a sprawling, sun-drenched musical. Drivers stepped out of their cars one by one, singing and dancing on the stagnant asphalt road, carving their own La La Land out of the exhaust. Then, the camera tilted – and the pipe dream shattered. We are slammed back into reality, where our protagonists fiddled with erratic radio signals, muttering about drunken gossip, and trading a sharply ironic middle finger.
Justin Hurwitz, the Academy Award-winning composer of La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016), conducted the film’s score live at Radio City Music Hall on April 11. Accompanied by the cinematic screening, a powerhouse fusion of a full orchestra and jazz ensemble swept through the hall, featuring searing saxophones, brassy flourishes, and a rhythmic backbone of piano, bass, and drums. Every note seemed to vibrate with the weight of the story, pressing against the hearts of the audience and capturing the fleeting, tragic beauty of the protagonists’ journey.
La La Land follows the intersecting lives of Mia, an aspiring actress struggling against frequent setbacks of the audition circuit, and Sebastian, a jazz purist who stubbornly clings to his ideals in a city that has outgrown them. These two unappreciated souls collide when Sebastian performs “Mia & Sebastian’s Theme” in a moody restaurant – a melancholic piano soliloquy in A major. Set against the hollow cheer of Christmas decorations and the superficial bustle of the dining room, the theme serves as both a fleeting reflection of their shared aspirations and the somber overture to a destined missed encounter.
Composed in a romantic 3/4 waltz time, “Mia & Sebastian’s Theme” is built upon a mere eight-bar theme, a melodic skeleton stripped of artifice and flashy embellishment. As the story unfolds, the motif is repeatedly rearranged with shifting instrumentation, keys, and tempos; rather than becoming repetitive, these variations deepen the sense of dramatic irony as characters’ lives continue to intertwine. For a romantic musical to anchor itself in such a tragic opening – only to later dress it in idealistic, lush orchestration – subtly foreshadows the story’s bittersweet conclusion.
“City of Stars,” another defining anthem of the film, emerges precisely when Mia and Sebastian are caught in a push-and-pull of unspoken feelings. The lyrics capture a delicate balance between romantic longing and existential doubt: “City of Stars, are you shining just for me? … Is this the start of something wonderful or new? Or one more dream that I cannot make true?” Later, “City of Stars” resurfaces in a poignant trinity: first as a soulful duet, then as a fleeting echo in the “Epilogue,” and finally as Mia’s solitary humming over the closing credits. If the duet represents the protagonists’ spiritual Resonance, a shared defiance against a world that has yet to notice them, then the later iterations of “City of Stars” serve as a wordless reckoning for a love that was as fleeting as it was beautiful.
As “Planetarium” swells, marking the moment the protagonists’ feelings are finally fully realized, the woodwinds take flight. The flutes, piccolo, and oboes echo around one another, symbolizing the fluttering excitement and mystery of a newfound love. As Mia and Sebastian surrender to the weightless suspension of their romance, the interior of the Griffith Observatory, where the scene is set, dissolves into a Milky Way. They waltz through the cosmos with stars twinkling at their feet; in that fleeting moment, the universe is their stage, and the stars shine for them alone. But as the final note dissipates, the gravity of the world returns, and the couple inevitably drift back from the heavens to the quiet weight of reality.
Usually, the essence of a film score is to serve the visuals, playing a strictly supporting role. In La La Land, however, the score is woven into the narrative and does more than just enhance the story; it justifies it. Each time a theme reappears, whether “City of Stars” or “Mia & Sebastian’s Theme,” it acts as a pivot for the plot, signaling a shift in the characters’ destinies.
Even stripped of the visuals, the music remains independently brilliant, possessing an emotional autonomy all its own. Every shifting beat and subtle lyric feels like Hurwitz’s own creative manifesto, projecting his personal devotion to musical craft onto Sebastian’s idealistic obsession with traditional jazz.
Attendees at the live performance of the film score departed the concert carrying their own stories and emotional response from La La Land. In the line for autographs, a woman jokingly suggested that Hurwitz sign the very tissue she had just used to dry her tears. Humming his score, the audience returned to their respective cities of stars to continue chasing dreams under the pressures of reality – carrying their ideals and their love, dancing jazz steps under the glow of the sunset.
Upcoming La La Land in Concert events include performances in Canada and Australia, Monaco, Los Angeles, and Taiwan. The tour is scheduled to conclude in San Francisco on April 10, 2027.
About the author(s)
Crystal Hu is a multidisciplinary documentary filmmaker, composer, writer, and visual artist, who is currently an M.S. candidate in the Documentary Specialization at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.