Final Fantasy Performs Landmark Indie-Classical Concert at Halifax Pop Explosion

The union of popular music with a symphony orchestra is neither new nor particularly shocking. Bands have been exploiting this juxtaposition for years with results that usually manage to both intrigue and alienate -- film director and San Francisco Symphony benefactor Francis Ford Coppola famously walked out on the orchestra's overwhelmed performance with Metallica.

But the combination of Canadian musical wunderkind Final Fantasy (AKA Owen Pallett) and Symphony Nova Scotia was a more nuanced and subversive affair, not to mention perhaps the biggest collaboration of its kind for an indie artist.

As part of both the symphony's Traditional Pops Series and the ongoing Halifax Pop Explosion festival, Final Fantasy seemed an obvious choice, not least because his upcoming album 'Heartland' is purported to be his most orchestral.

Classically trained from the age of three, the Toronto native burst onto the international musical radar five years ago after arranging the strings for Arcade Fire's breakthrough album 'Funeral.'

Pallett has since become the go-to orchestral arranger for everyone from indie rockers Grizzly Bear and Beirut, electro legends Pet Shop Boys and British baroque pop outfit the Last Shadow Puppets to hardcore heroes F---ed Up. Under solo guise Final Fantasy, he uses violin, synth and his ethereal voice to creates dense musical landscapes. His records, most notably his Polaris Prize-winning sophomore effort 'He Poos Clouds,' have received widespread critical acclaim and even produced the underground hits 'The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead' and the Arcade Fire-alluding 'This is the Dream of Win and Regine.'

Much like fellow gay Canadian musical icon Rufus Wainwright, Pallett enjoys slipping in obscene and uncomfortably personal homoerotica into his lush musical compositions. So when Pallett took the stage, dressed in white turtle-neck and hip black jeans, to join conductor Martin MacDonald and his symphony, there was an air of anticipatory unease.

A quick scan of the crowd, as evidenced by the scarcity of tickets available to Pop Explosion attendees, showed most in the audience were regular symphony patrons, broken up by small pockets of well-dressed and/or bearded hipsters. The night's theme was composers under the age of 30 so the symphony opened with a playing of Prokofiev's 'Classical Symphony (No. 1) Op. 25' before Pallett and musical companion Thomas Gill arrived.

Starting with 'He Poos Clouds' opening couplet -- 'Arctic Circle' and the title track -- the gravitas of a full orchestra brought the familiar Final Fantasy songs to even richer life, with the vibrant staccato stabs bringing to mind his work with Last Shadow Puppets while nodding heavily to the Beach Boys' 'Pet Sounds.'

Not every song utilized the orchestra. Before the first intermission, 'Flare Gun' -- the first of several songs previewed from 'Heartland,' set to be released in January 2010 -- 'The Butcher' and 'The Great Elsewhere' were performed using Pallett's parented looped violin technique and Gill's multi-instrumental accompaniment.

As well as fleshing out the arrangements, the orchestra allowed Pallett to focus on singing, giving his voice a more powerful resonance and giving his lyrics a sharper clarity. Fans and symphony regulars alike were treated to such subversive material as the inaugural performance of 'Oh Heartland, Up Yours!' which boasted repeated references to the male organ. While most took it in stride, laughing at the talented musician's chosen subject matter, the second half of the two-hour concert began with blocks of noticeably empty seats.

Opening with Pierre Mercure's 'Kaleidoscope' -- which the Canadian composer wrote at the age of 21 shortly before dying in a car crash -- the post-intermission also had a lighter touch, including covers of Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks' 'Palm Desert' and Deep Dark United's Alex Lukashevsky's 'Ultimatum'.

Palette closed with 'Heartland's opening track 'Midnight Directives' -- which garnered the first of two standing ovations from the audience -- and the crowd-pleasing 'CN Tower.' While it may not have pleased all of the symphony's regulars, Final Fantasy's ambition won over the majority of the crowd -- and no doubt the many more who will listen via CBC Radio 2.

Through baroque-pop, dance music, hardcore punk and last night's landmark indie-orchestral collaboration, Pallet's brilliant understanding of symphonic arrangement has done more for the modernization of classical music in this decade than perhaps any other artist.