‘Game of Thrones’ comes to Houston Friday

“Game of Thrones” may have wrapped up its eighth and final season last May, but the legacy of the fantasy drama — which just won an Emmy for best drama on Sunday — lives on through its hauntingly beautiful music.

For Houston, that means winter is coming, and quite early at that.

On Friday, the critically acclaimed “Game of Thrones” Live Concert Experience will return to the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion on its third, 17-city amphitheater tour, produced by Live Nation in partnership with HBO Licensing and Retail. With visual effects like pyrotechnics and simulated snow, the immersive performance will transport fans to Westeros, allowing them to relive epic moments from the series through emotionally charged scores by German-Iranian composer Ramin Djawadi, who is on the heels of his second Emmy win for outstanding music composition in the final season’s third episode, “The Long Night.” Under the baton of Michael Sobie, the orchestra and choir will perform popular pieces, such as the viral, nine-minute theme titled “The Night King,” while corresponding scenes are projected onto a large screen behind the ensemble.

“The impact, it’s just incredible to see,” said Djawadi, reflecting on the success of the concert since it premiered in 2017, six years after the HBO adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s book series debuted, enthralling audiences around the world.

“I’ll never forget when the first episode came out,” he said. “The next day, there were all these cover songs popping up on YouTube of the ‘Main Title,’ and I was just really impressed with how creative people got and how inspired they were to record their own version.”

The music immediately resonated with viewers and continued to do so, leading creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to suggest the possibility of a live concert after the third season concluded. It took about three years to bring the idea to fruition, and during that time, Djawadi expanded the concept from a single performance into a full tour, in which the production crew intricately uses state-of-the-art technology to bring the Seven Kingdoms to life.

“I always wanted to put a modern or contemporary spin on the show,” Djawadi said of the visual effects that intensify the impact of the imagery depicted on the screen. “We have music in the foreground, which is very emotional, but then visually, I wanted some more eye candy there.”

Of course, there is much ground to cover in a 2.5-hour concert, and the creative team updated the program each time a new season was released in order to incorporate the newest occurrences. In the selection process, Djawadi said he not only considered the musical themes that he wanted to share, but also the aspects of the story line that were essential to capturing the full narrative.

This year, that proved more difficult.

“I feel like I could’ve done an entire concert just on Season 8 alone,” Djawadi said. “People that have seen the shows previously, I think they’ll be excited because there’s so much new material that we’re playing. They’re seeing a new show basically.”

One addition that the composer — whose upcoming projects include “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” and Season 3 of “Westworld” — is excited about is a longer arrangement of “Jenny of Oldstones” than what appears on the soundtrack. Featuring lyrics from the book, the captivating yet somber song foreshadows what is to come in the thrilling Battle of Winterfell.

It was a highly anticipated finale, but fortunately for “Game of Thrones” fans, the ending of the television series does not necessarily determine the fate of the symphonic experience.

“I feel very fortunate to have been part of this great project, and I’m very happy that we’re able to continue this now with the live concert,” Djawadi said. “When we created the concert, we had to go back to Season 1 and watch some of the footage, and it was just great to be reminded of how it all started and the character arcs, where they came from and how they developed. I certainly can’t let go, and I could imagine that there are fans out there that would enjoy this again.”