"John Williams is at the very top," says Watters. "There's Max Steiner and John Williams, not just because of their impact on film music, but the popularity they enjoyed during their lifetimes, the sheer magnitude of the work, the dedication and the diversity of their films. Star Wars brought back the notion of big symphonic scoring, that still remains the ultimate way to score a picture today. We owe a big debt of gratitude to him."

Swiss conductor Ludwig Wicki, Shore's hand-picked choice to conduct the Rings scores live, conducted Fellowship live last year at Wolf Trap. He has also conducted The Two Towers on several occasions in Europe and is planning to finish the trilogy with The Return of the King next year in Lucerne, Switzerland. "It's like a symphony with the movie," says Wicki. "Twenty-seven movements, two hours and 35 minutes of music. It's the most stressful thing you can do," he adds with a laugh.

The Williams program will feature the West Coast premiere of Williams' "Suite from Memoirs of a Geisha" with cello soloist Johannes Moser, as well as what is being called an "L.A. Triptych" – excerpts from Franz Waxman's Sunset Boulevard, Jerry Goldsmith's Chinatown and Miklos Rozsa's Double Indemnity. Music of Korngold, North and Herrmann round out the program.

The Disney evening will be highlighted by a "symphonic retelling" of the 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – the original songs and score performed by orchestra and choir, but with 10 singer-actors reading the original dialogue from the script of the animated classic, condensed down to about 45 minutes. Music from other Disney films (Nightmare Before Christmas, Sleeping Beauty and a new 15-minute suite from the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy) will also be featured.

Fox points out that music from films, TV and videogames "set an emotional tone, a dramatic feeling. In a sense they are the pinnacle of `dramatic narrative' – similar to opera, but without words, only to set the emotion the viewer is to feel. The emotion is still present when you take it out of context and present it on its own, on the concert stage."

Morricone conducted his music in New York in 2007 but has never before appeared in L.A. Producer Gianni Succi, who grew up in Italy, has a nostalgic connection with the Maestro: "Every score of Morricone's represents a piece of my life – when I was a kid, when I had a girlfriend, when my daughter was born– He has been composing music for 50 years. His music is the soundtrack of my life." He adds: "In November, Ennio will be 81. I'm trying to make everyone aware of this unmissable, and probably unrepeatable, opportunity."