How to Train Your Dragon in Concert
WASO AT THE MOVIES
Fri 17 & Sat 18 July 2026 | Riverside Theatre, Perth Convention & Exhibition Centre
Conductor Jessica Gethin
West Australian Symphony Orchestra respectfully acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and Elders of Country throughout Western Australia, and the Whadjuk Noongar people on whose lands we work and share music.
How to use your Digital Program
How to Train Your Dragon
DREAMWORKS ANIMATION PRESENTS
“HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON”
MUSIC BY JOHN POWELL
BASED ON THE BOOK BY CRESSIDA COWELL
SCREENPLAY BY WILL DAVIES AND DEAN DEBLOIS & CHRIS SANDERS
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS KRISTINE BELSON TIM JOHNSON
PRODUCED BY BONNIE ARNOLD
DIRECTED BY CHRIS SANDERS & DEAN DEBLOIS
Tonight's program is a presentation of the complete film How To Train Your Dragon with a live performance of the film’s entire score, including music played by the orchestra during the end credits. Out of respect for the musicians and your fellow audience members, please remain seated until the conclusion of the music.
How To Train Your Dragon © 2010 DreamWorks Animation LLC. All Rights Reserved.
WASO On Stage
About the Conductor
Jessica Gethin
Conductor
Award-winning conductor Jessica Gethin is recognised for her dynamic presence on the podium, musical versatility and inspiring artistic leadership. Equally at home in the concert hall and theatre, her repertoire spans symphonic, opera, ballet, film and contemporary works. She performs regularly with all of Australia’s major orchestras, including the Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, West Australian, Queensland and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras as well as Orchestra Victoria, and works extensively with the West Australian Ballet and The Australian Ballet.
International engagements have taken her throughout Asia, New Zealand and the United States, for appearances with orchestras including the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic, Orchestra Macao and The Dallas Opera. She has collaborated with distinguished classical artists including Sir Bryn Terfel and Emma Matthews, as well as international jazz and contemporary artists including Harry Connick, Jr., Makoto Ozone, Michael Bolton and Chrissy Amphlett, in projects ranging from symphonic concerts to genre-crossing productions presented at leading venues including the Sydney Opera House, Sidney Myer Music Bowl and Carnegie Hall, New York.
Jessica currently serves as Principal Conductor of West Australian Ballet, Artistic Advisor to Orchestra Victoria, and Head of Orchestral Studies and Conducting at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, where she mentors the next generation of conductors and orchestral musicians. From 2011–2019, she was Chief Conductor of the Perth Symphony, shaping the orchestra’s artistic growth and national profile. She is also an ambassador and lead faculty member for Perth Symphony’s Women on the Podium initiative, championing greater representation and leadership pathways for women in conducting.
Her accolades include being named twice in Limelight Magazine’s Top 20 Australian Artists, inclusion in the Australian Financial Review’s 100 Most Influential Women, the Brian Stacey Emerging Australian Conductor Award, a Churchill Fellowship, appointment as an inaugural Hart Institute Fellow with The Dallas Opera, finalist for West Australian of the Year, and induction into the 2024 WA Women’s Hall of Fame.
Show more...
About the Composer
John Powell
Composer
A native of London, Powell was an accomplished violinist as a child, wrote music for commercials out of school, and assisted composer Patrick Doyle in the early 1990s. He moved to the U.S. in 1997, where he worked on numerous projects for Hans Zimmer and his film music company Remote Control. He co-wrote the score for Antz with Harry Gregson-Williams, and quickly became one of the most desirable, versatile, and exciting composers in town.
John Powell was catapulted into the realm of A-list composers by displaying an entirely original voice with his oft-referenced scores to the first installment of Matt Damon’s Bourne trilogy, The Bourne Identity from 2002. He has become the go-to writer for family animated films, scoring such hits as Shrek (co-written with Harry Gregson-Williams), Chicken Run (co-written with Harry Gregson-Williams), Ice Age: The Meltdown, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Bolt, Rio, Happy Feet, Happy Feet Two and the two first installments of Kung Fu Panda (co-written with Hans Zimmer). His pulsating action music has provided the fuel for Hancock, Green Zone, Stop Loss, Mr. & Mrs. Smith and The Italian Job. His music has also sweetened the romance of Two Weeks Notice and P.S.: I Love You. In 2006 his music empowered X-Men: The Last Stand, lent tenderness to I Am Sam and gripping, real-time drama to United 93.
His infectious score for How to Train Your Dragon earned him his first Academy Award nomination. Powell has also lent his voice to the score of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, Ice Age: Continental Drift, Rio 2, directed by Carlos Saldanha, and DreamWorks’ How To Train Your Dragon 2. His work can be found in Warner Bros.’ Pan starring Hugh Jackman, Universal Pictures’ action-thriller Jason Bourne starring Matt Damon and Fox’s Oscar-nominated animated feature Ferdinand. Most recent for Powell was Disney’s highly anticipated Solo: A Star Wars Story, directed by Ron Howard, which gave him the opportunity to collaborate with Maestro John Williams.
Most recently, John Powell’s music can be heard in the critically acclaimed final installment of DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, directed by Dean DeBlois.
In addition to his numerous film scores of all genres, John Powell has also written concert works for choir and orchestra. A selection of these has been released in June of last year with the album "Hubris – Choral Works by John Powell" – including his deeply moving work A Prussian Requiem.
Show more...
Production Credits
About WASO
Engage | Excite | Experience | Educate
From the centre of Perth to the furthest corners of the state, we have provided the soundtrack to life in WA since 1928.
As the State Orchestra, Perth’s first and finest, WASO is the largest employer of performing artists in Western Australia and reaches two million people with musical experiences each year on stage, in our community, and online.
From concert stages to classrooms, hospitals to aged care, we bring joy, inspire learning, and nurture participation in our community, because everybody deserves the opportunity to experience live music. Every year, through community and leading industry partnerships, we engage a new generation of young and emerging artists to help secure a bright future for music in Australia.
We celebrate our rich classical music heritage with great artists from all over the world and commission and perform new repertoire to renew and expand it. The Orchestra collaborates widely with major arts companies and independent artists, performing opera to ballet, movies to musicals, jazz to rock.
Asher Fisch is Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser of our Orchestra. We champion the diversity of music in all its forms, with a team of talented and passionate people who create unforgettable experiences for all West Australians to enjoy.
Show more...
Our Supporters
