Henry Performs in Lord of the Rings Symphony (2026)

Henry plays accordion in Lord of the Rings Symphony (2026)

Henry on stage for Lord of the Rings: A Choral Symphony, while orchestra members warm up.

Sunday June 14, 2026: Henry performed with San Diego County’s Orchestra Tutti, The Center Chorale, Pacific Coast Chorale, Escondido Choral Arts Children’s Chorus, Guest Singers and Soloists for a presentation of a symphonic work written for The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien. The program notes explained:

This exciting work from the Tolkien films includes 85 instrumentalists, 100 singers, soloists, and children’s chorus. The music of The Lord of the Rings composed by Howard Shore is counted among film scores most complex and comprehensive works offering a unique performance that allows the music to bear the narrative weight of the films creating a new and dramatic live concert experience.

Guest conductor, James Beauton, of San Francisco, will bring his musical expertise to the score of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, composed by Howard Shore and winning the Academy Award for Best Original Score in 2001. This descriptive score includes unusual percussion instruments such as Japanese taiko drums, metal bell plates and chains beaten upon piano wires depicting the mythical creatures called Orcs. Come and hear this collaborative event that includes performers across the county providing creative arts experiences enhancing the vibrancy of our community for performers and audience alike.

Henry spoke about Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings Symphony:

I am no stranger to The Lord of the Rings. I watched the movie triology directed by Peter Jackson over thirty times between 2001 and 2011. I purchased the extended-edition Blue Ray discs, and still watch it on occasion today. I have also read the book by J. R. R. Tolkein several times. Something about the story, and the setting in a bygone long-lost Medieval Age on an earth relatively unspoiled by humans, touches my heart.

In addition, I played accordion with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in three performances of Howard Shore’s symphony in July 2004. I wrote about these performances in a page on my website:

July 2004: Henry Doktorski performed with an ensemble of 200 musicians and singers: the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Mendelssohn Choir, the Pittsburgh Children’s Festival Chorus, and soprano Sissel, in three performances of Howard Shore’s The Lord of the Rings Symphony on July 29-31 at Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The symphony is a six-movement tour de force which presents the soundtrack music from Peter Jackson’s nine-hour film trilogy The Lord of the Rings in a two-hour opera-like distillation. The symphony captures not only the sweeping emotion, thrilling vistas, and grand journeys of J. R. R. Tolkien’s literary masterpiece, but also echoes the very construction of Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

Styles, instruments, and performers were collected from around the world to provide each of Tolkien’s cultures with a unique musical imprint. The mystical Elves touch upon ethereal Eastern colors. The Dwarves, Tolkien’s abrasive stonecutters, receive columns of parallel harmonies and a rough, guttural male chorus. The industrialized hordes of Orcs are depicted by violent and percussive sounds, including enormous Japanese taiko drums, metal bell plates, and chains beaten on piano strings. The world of Men, those flawed yet noble heirs of Middle-earth, is represented by stern and searching brass figures.

The accordion appears in movements one and six, along with the bodhran, hammered dulcimer, nylon-string guitar, Irish whistle, harp, fiddle, and string orchestra, to help create the simple and rural atmosphere of the Shire, the peaceful and quaint home of the Hobbits, by presenting a dulcet weave of Celtic-sounding melodies.

In operatic fashion, these diverse musical worlds and their themes commingle, sometimes combining forces for a culminated power, at other times clashing. Each group of two consecutive movements corresponds to one book within Tolkien’s trilogy.

Doktorski said, “Howard Shore’s symphony is a sometimes powerful and sometimes intimate musical portrait of Tolkien’s trilogy. The wet-tuned accordion (a Musette accordion is called for in the score) helps create an ancient Celtic-sounding harmonic accompaniment to a beautiful fiddle melody of the Hobbits, those charming halfling creatures of Middle-earth, who are the actual heroes of the epic masterpiece.”

These performances mark Doktorski’s 38^th through 40^th appearances with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

Henry joked: As you can tell from the images of the accordion part below, I had to practice many hours to learn this music! No, actually the accordion part is ridiculously simple. In fact, even a beginner could probably play it. Howard Shore did not use the accordion as a solo instrument, he used it as an accompaniment instrument to help create the atmosphere in sound of the home of the hobbits: The Shire.

The Shire is a small but beautiful, idyllic and fruitful land, beloved by its hobbit inhabitants. They have agriculture and crafts, but no industry. The landscape consists of meadows and woods, like the English countryside. The Shire is a (mostly) peaceful and laid-back place where people are in no hurry to go anywhere and many residents enjoy meeting their friends after work at the Green Dragon Inn (the local pub) for a mug of fresh-brewed ale and a few puffs of smoke from Old Toby pipe tobacco, the finest weed grown in the Southfarthing.

The accordion, due to its reputation as a folk instrument, helps to convey the imagery of the rural simplicity of The Shire. The instrument appears right at the five minute mark, and provides a gentle accompaniment to the solo violin and dulcimer. After about a minute and a half, when the music of The Shire was finished, I rested my accordion on the floor, sat back, and enjoyed listening to the rest of the symphony for another 40 minutes or so, as Frodo and Sam (and Merry and Pippin) travel through Bree, get attacked by Ring Wraiths at the ruins of Weathertop, rest with the elves in Rivendale, travel through the dark and dangerous mines of Moria, visit the elven kingdom of Lothlorien, and canoe down the Anduin River.

I was very happy and surprised, after the work was finally finished and Maestro Beauton called on specific orchestra players who had important parts to stand and receive individual audience applause, when Maestro looked over past the viola section at me and requested that I stand. I did not feel that the 90-second accordion part was notable, but I was grateful to receive the acknowledgement, and the audience responded with a fresh wave of applause.