Film Music Prague 2026 – Music of Hollywood: Jerry Goldsmith & Basil Poledouris – SUMMARY

On 4 October 2026, festival Film Music Prague festival returned to celebrate a very special concert dedicated to the works of two geniuses: Jerry Goldsmith & Basil Poledouris, with music from Total Recall, Basic Instinct, RoboCop or Starship Troopers, among many others.

 

Our colleague Tim Segler attended the concert and has left us a summary article for SoundTrackFest.

 

Music of Hollywood – Goldsmith & Poledouris - Film Music Concert at the Rudolfinum in Prague

On 4 October 2026, the Rudolfinum in Prague became the setting for an evening devoted to two of Hollywood’s most distinctive and influential film composers: Jerry Goldsmith and Basil Poledouris. The concert Music of Hollywood – Goldsmith & Poledouris brought together the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, conducted by Chuhei Iwasaki (choirmaster Lenka Dandová), for a programme celebrating the extraordinary range, dramatic power and craftsmanship of both composers.

 

The programme offered a carefully balanced selection of music from some of the most iconic films of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, demonstrating how differently Goldsmith and Poledouris approached the relationship between music, image, character and atmosphere.

 

Among the highlights were music from Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Alien, Conan the Barbarian and RoboCop – five scores that reveal the composers’ individual musical identities while also illustrating their remarkable ability to create worlds that continue to live far beyond the films for which they were written.

 

The program was as follows:

 

Jerry Goldsmith – musical invention, tension and orchestral colour

Few composers possessed Jerry Goldsmith’s ability to reinvent his musical language from film to film. His scores combine a profound command of the symphonic tradition with an adventurous approach to rhythm, orchestration, electronic sonorities and unusual instrumental colours.

 

Basil Poledouris – epic power, lyricism and heroic drama

Basil Poledouris approached film music from a different but equally compelling perspective. His scores are characterised by powerful orchestral writing, memorable themes, emphatic brass, driving percussion and, where appropriate, the dramatic force of the human voice. Yet beneath their muscular exterior lies an exceptional melodic sensitivity.

 

A programme of cinematic milestones

The Prague programme traced an impressive arc through both composers’ careers, from the space landscapes of Alien and the mythic world of Conan the Barbarian to the futuristic environments of RoboCop and Total Recall and the psychological tension of Basic Instinct.

 

The evening also included music from The Mummy, The Hunt for Red October, and Starship Troopers, as well as an encore from Rambo II. Particularly notable was the inclusion of world premieres of suites from Basic Instinct and Flesh and Blood, together with End Credits from Rambo II.

 

The concert celebrated not simply two legendary Hollywood composers, but two highly individual musical imaginations whose work helped define the sound of modern cinema.

 

Music of Hollywood – Goldsmith & Poledouris thus offered a vivid reminder that the greatest film scores do more than accompany pictures: they create worlds of their own.

 

Article by Tim Segler

Photos by Gorka Oteiza