ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad
Ad
Ad

Faust at the Cinematheque: an intriguing combination of silent film and metal music (Sept. 27)

by

by Stephanie Manning

Horror movies and metal music seem a natural fit. Too bad that F.W. Murnau’s Faust isn’t really a horror movie.

The late-night showing of the 1926 German Expressionist film, presented at the Cleveland Cinematheque, promised a spooky atmosphere with a score to match. This enticing premise didn’t always deliver, especially after the film’s plot veered off course. But the packed screening on September 27, which closed out this year’s Cleveland Silent Film Festival and Colloquium, provided other moments of synergy between screen and sound.

Live metal act The Silent Light — guitarist and synthesist Michael Formanski and drummer Matt Hardy — artfully set the scene as the opening credits rolled. [Read more…]

Cleveland Silent Film Festival opens with 1925 Phantom & live orchestra (Sep. 14)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

The 2025-2026 Cleveland Silent Film Festival and Colloquium got off to an impressive start with the screening of one of the icons of the pre-talkies era: Universal Pictures’ Phantom of the Opera in a restoration of its original version of 1925.

Presented before a large crowd in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Sunday afternoon, September 14, the screening was accompanied by an orchestra score itself restored from the original piano score — mostly existing photoplay selections, plus three original cues by one G. Hinrichs orchestrated by Larry Moore. [Read more…]

Cleveland Silent Film Festival double bill features soundtrack by pianist Mike Petrone

by

by Stephanie Manning

In 2001, pianist Mike Petrone helped director John Baumgartner create the soundtrack to a silent film called War Story. Then he shelved the recordings and never thought about them again. Until last year.

When a friend directing a show at Clague Playhouse reached out to ask if they could use some of the recordings, Petrone dug them back up and listened to them for the first time in decades.

This summer, he’s found himself studying that score again. That’s all thanks to the Cleveland Silent Film Festival, who decided not only to screen Baumgartner’s film, but also ask Petrone to accompany it.

On Saturday, August 9, War Story and Charlie Chaplin’s Sunnyside (1919) will be presented as a double feature at the main Cleveland Public Library, with Petrone providing a live score from the keyboard. The 3:00 pm concert in the Louis Stokes Wing Auditorium is free. [Read more…]

Cleveland Photoplayers to make debut at Cleveland Silent Film Festival

by

by Kevin McLaughlin

Aficionados of silent film music know there is an infinite variety of approaches to performing a film’s music, from original scores to improvised performances and generic musical cues that have been stitched together from a variety of sources.

On Saturday, April 5 at 4:30 pm in the Louis Stokes Wing Auditorium at the Cleveland Public Library, the Cleveland Silent Film Festival will continue their “CPL: Celebrating 100 Years” series with a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1929 thriller Blackmail. Daniel Goldmark, Professor of Music at Case Western Reserve University, will introduce the film and the musical score. Admission is free.

The screening will also mark the debut of The Cleveland Photoplayers. Directed by pianist Eric Charnofsky (pictured), the ensemble includes violinist Emily Cornelius, cellist David Ellis, clarinetist Amitai Vardi, and cornetist Riley Conley.

[Read more…]

Cleveland Silent Film Festival 3: Heart of Cleveland (1924) & Man With a Movie Camera (1929, Sept. 8)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

The third of four evenings of soundless cinema presented by the Cleveland Silent Film Festival featured a charming industrial propaganda piece and an exuberant compendium of filming and editing techniques, both from the 1920s and both screened with live underscores by the excellent and indefatigable Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

Now in its second season, the Silent Film Festival has obviously attracted a following. The crowd gathered on Friday evening September 8 in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art so far exceeded expectations that attendees were asked to recycle their programs for the Saturday screening. [Read more…]

Cleveland Silent Film Festival opener to feature organist Clark Wilson

by

by Daniel Hathaway

Three of the classics to be screened at the Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium from September 6-9 will enjoy the live collaboration of Colorado’s Mont Alto Silent Film Orchestra. But Harold Lloyd’s iconic comedy Safety Last!, the opening event on Wednesday, September 6 at 7 pm at Masonic Auditorium, will be accompanied by a single musician.

Organist Clark Wilson is one of the most prominent scorers of silent photoplays in America today. His accompaniments reflect the techniques and materials of the musical performances given in major picture palaces during the heyday of silent film.

One of those resources is the theater organ, which represents a special tributary in the grand stream of pipe organ history, and was only made possible by developments in electricity around the turn of the 20th century.

Before that time, the liaison between player and pipes was mechanical. Once inventors like Robert Hope-Jones in Britain discovered how to open valves to let air into pipework electrically, entirely new possibilities arose. That led to inventions like the Hope-Jones Unit Orchestra, which comprised a small number of ranks whose individual pipes could be wired in at different pitches on different keyboards.

According to the Western Reserve Theater Organ Society website, “The tonal sounds of the theater organ were designed specifically to provide more robust and engaging music to match the action and storyline of the silent film. [Read more…]

At the movies with the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra  

by

by Mike Telin

It was historical performance practice at its best this past Wednesday when the Cleveland Silent Film Festival presented a screening of the 1928 Buster Keaton classic comedy Steamboat Bill, Jr. at Oberlin’s historic Apollo Theater. Accompanied by the brilliant Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, the evening captured the allure of the “Golden Age” of film.

During his brief opening remarks, Mont Alto director and pianist Rodney Sauer explained that the music that would be heard was from one of the group’s “compiled scores” assembled from a library of “photoplay” music — pre-written works that depict certain scenes. He added that much of the music had been written by Cleveland native and film music pioneer John Stepan Zamecnik. [Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us