Conductor Shelbie Rassler Takes Us “Across the Spider-Verse”

At just 26 years old, Shelbie Rassler has already set the music world on fire. The composer, conductor, multi-instrumentalist, and producer gained national recognition when she produced a viral music video of Burt Bacharach’s “What the World Needs Now” with fellow students from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee who had been sent home during the pandemic. She has since gone on to earn her master’s in composition from The Julliard School, and her career continues to reach new heights.

Never one to stand still, Rassler has already achieved so much in her varied career. “I love to do a little bit of everything,” she explained. “I keep myself busy, and it’s good for my brain to stay active and hop around from one thing to the next.” As a composer and arranger, Rassler’s work has been performed at prestigious venues, including the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and His Majesty’s Theatre on London’s West End. She also works as an arranger for Concertize and Candlelight Concerts, bringing classical music to wide audiences around the world. Her music has even been featured on various Netflix shows, commercials, and short films. During the summer, she is the music director of the Vail Dance Festival in Vail, Colorado. She has also collaborated in a number of high-profile fundraising concerts and social impact projects, including serving as music producer for “Bring Them Home: A Broadway Prayer” in support of the hostages who were kidnapped in Israel on October 7, 2023.

Rassler’s current project is a nationwide tour of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Live in Concert, which comes to the State Farm Center in Champaign on Wednesday, October 2. From September 1 to mid-November, she will give over 60 performances of the show in over 50 cities across the United States, sometimes performing multiple shows a day. This is the first tour of this scale she has been involved in, calling it “a dream come true” and “a life-changing adventure.”

In Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Live in Concert, audiences will see the film on the big screen, accompanied by live orchestral musicians, percussionists, electronics, and a scratch DJ on turntables playing the score live as the film happens. Logistically, the production is a massive undertaking. In addition to the 15 musicians on stage, the show travels with audio engineers, stage managers, a tour manager, and a crew that works together with local crews at each venue to unload instruments and equipment and assemble the set.

The score of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was composed by Emmy Award-winning composer Daniel Pemberton, known for his work on Ferrari, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Oceans 8, Enola Holmes, The Bad Guys, and Steve Jobs. Inspired by Pemberton’s youth amid the ’90s London rave scene, the score combines multiple genres, including techno, scratch DJing, hip-hop, punk, and classical. In addition to original music by Pemberton, the score also features songs by the likes of Future, Nas, Swae Lee, James Blake, Lil Wayne, and Lil Uzi Vert.

Rassler has the difficult task of keeping all of these diverse elements together and making sure everything lines up with what happens on screen down to the millisecond—something she calls a “dance of synchronicity.” So, how does she do it?

“We have various tools that help us keep track of where we are in the film,” she explained. “I have a conductor cam that I’m watching during the film in addition to the huge HD screen that the audience is watching throughout. My conductor screen has certain elements that are added called punches and streamers, which, in the film-scoring world, are what help the conductor stay on and anticipate certain hit points to make sure we’re all synced up. So, we definitely have some tools that help us and click tracks and all of those kinds of things. But it certainly is an interesting challenge to keep track of everything and make sure everyone’s on the train and it’s going in the right direction.”

Fortunately, Rassler has used some of these tools before in recording film soundtracks, but this will be her first time utilizing them in live performance. “For this to be my first time doing that as well as my first time on tour at all—it is a journey of firsts and such an exciting ride,” she said.

When asked what she likes most about Pemberton’s diverse score, she said, “I think it is so brilliantly written. There’s just such an energy and forward motion that really takes the audience on a journey through the Spider-Verse, if you will . . . There are also a lot of emotional and tender moments where Daniel has written some beautiful string lines and beautiful French horn solos that are really moving and passionately performed by our musicians. There are so many parts that all come together to create this just really cool, immersive experience.”

She believes the eclectic score has the ability to connect with audiences of all musical tastes and backgrounds. “I think everyone can find something that they are familiar with or a genre that they love,” she said. “There’s something for everyone of all ages.”

For many attendees, the show is the first time they will have heard orchestral instruments in person or even live music of any kind. The potential for outreach is one aspect of the project that especially appealed to Rassler. “It’s really an incredible opportunity to get kids in the concert hall and hopefully ignite a new generation of concertgoers and people who are passionate about live music.”

As such, her favorite part about the tour so far has been going out into the lobbies after the shows and meeting kids who are blown away by the experience. “One of my favorite comments so far was from a little boy, maybe 7 or 8 years old, who said that he never wants to watch a movie without a live orchestra ever again!"

Click here for more information on the show or to purchase tickets for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Live in Concert at the State Farm Center on Wednesday, October 2.