The Phoenix Symphony sets sail with Pirates of the Caribbean, live, at Symphony Hall

The orchestra plays The Curse of the Black Pearl score under the film this Friday through Sunday, with free KidTix seats for young fans.

Halloween weekend in downtown Phoenix comes with a ship, a cursed crew and a full orchestra hauling on the ropes. Starting this Friday, the Phoenix Symphony plays the score to *Pirates of the Caribbean* live while the film runs above the stage at Symphony Hall.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl in Concert runs Friday, October 30 at 7:30pm, Saturday, October 31 at 7:30pm and Sunday, November 1 at 2pm, at Phoenix Symphony Hall. The symphony's listing puts the running time at about two hours and 15 minutes, with the movie on a large screen and the orchestra performing Klaus Badelt and Hans Zimmer's score underneath it. Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley are on the screen; the Phoenix Symphony is in the pit, so to speak, except that it is right there on stage where you can watch the brass section earn its keep.

This is the orchestra's home room, and in our records the Phoenix Symphony has played this market more than any other, with 189 shows logged here. Symphony Hall seats about 2,300, enough to make a big Hollywood score feel the size it was written to be.

The Pirates run is part of the symphony's Films Series, the film-with-live-orchestra programs that have become one of the easiest ways into the hall for people who do not yet have a subscriber's habit. Badelt and Zimmer's music is built for it: big, rhythmic and relentless, the kind of score that is half the reason the action sequences work. Hearing it come off real strings and real percussion instead of a multiplex sound system changes how the film plays, and the effect is usually strongest in the swashbuckling set pieces where the music never stops moving.

There is a practical reason families should look at this one in particular. The symphony lists the Pirates run as eligible for Symphony KidTix, its program offering free tickets to young people ages 5 to 17. On a weekend that also includes Halloween night, the Sunday 2pm matinee, the obvious choice for younger crews, is sold out, and Saturday's 7:30pm show is there for anyone who wants their pirate costume to do double duty.

Symphony Hall itself is one of downtown's anchors, a concrete performing arts center that Wikimedia Commons describes as built between 1969 and 1972 to a design by Charles Luckman, and renovated in 2004.

Tickets for the Friday and Saturday performances are on the Phoenix Symphony's own show page, and KidTix details are on the same site. Pick a night, pick a costume or don't, and let the orchestra do the sailing.

Sources: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl in Concert — The Phoenix Symphony (phoenixsymphony.org); Films Series — The Phoenix Symphony (phoenixsymphony.org); Calendar — The Phoenix Symphony (phoenixsymphony.org); Category:Phoenix Symphony Hall — Wikimedia Commons (commons.wikimedia.org)