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Cleveland Silent Film Festival celebrates 1926

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by Mike Telin

Before there was a soundtrack on the film, there was plenty of great live music being performed in front of the screen.

Beginning on September 15, the Cleveland Silent Film Festival and Colloquium — a celebration of the expressive power of early cinema accompanied by live music — will launch its fifth edition with half a dozen films, five of which are celebrating their centenary.

This year’s Festival will feature some outstanding musical talent that will bring the historical films to life. To see the lineup and purchase single tickets and Festival Passes, click here.

The Festival kicks off with East and West (1923) on Tuesday, September 15, at 7:30 pm at the Cinematheque at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

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Cleveland Silent Film Festival opens with Phantom of the Opera centennial screening

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by Mike Telin

The Cleveland premiere of Phantom of the Opera, starring Lon Chaney, lit up the screen at the Stillman Theatre on Sunday, January 17, 1926. In his Plain Dealer review, W. Ward Marsh wrote: “If your heart is strong, I recommend it to you. If your heart isn’t so strong, go see this film anyway, to find out how strong it is.”

On Sunday, September 14, the Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium will open its 2025 edition with that iconic film. The special screening at 3:00 pm in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art will celebrate Phantom’s 100th anniversary and feature its original score, performed live by American Musical Productions’ 17-piece orchestra conducted by Joseph Rubin.

Lon Chaney’s performance as the Phantom still captivates a century later, while the music of the original 1925 orchestral score brings the gothic grandeur of Gaston Leroux’s tale to life.

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Cleveland Silent Film & Colloquium: Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life

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by Mike Telin

When Mahtab Nadalian was asked to create a score for the film Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life, the Pittsburgh-based santour player was intrigued by the idea. “I’ve never played a live accompaniment for a silent film, so it sounded like a very interesting project,” she said during a recent telephone conversation.

On Saturday, November 23 at 7:00 pm at the Cinematheque, the Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium will present Merian C. Cooper’s and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s 1925 documentary film complete with an original score composed and performed by Mahtab Nadalian. The film will be introduced by Evan A. Liberman, Associate Professor of Film, Television, and Interactive Media at Cleveland State University. Tickets are available online.

Considered one of the earliest ethnographic documentary films, Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life follows a branch of the Bakhtiari tribe of Lurs in Persia as they and their herds make their seasonal journey to better pastures.

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Sentiment, Satire, Horror, and Noir in silent film (May 10)

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by Mike Telin

At a time when performing musical scores during the showings of blockbuster films has become popular  programming for symphony orchestras, it’s interesting to turn back the clock to an era when audiences never heard the actors’ voices and the music was always performed live by whatever size ensemble was available.

This past semester a group of Oberlin students in the Music and Melodrama on Stage and Screen class, taught by Emily Laurance, immersed themselves in the creation of film scores from a historical perspective.

On Friday, May 10 the members of the class presented their final projects at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Transformer Station. “The Many Moods of Melodrama: Sentiment, Satire, Horror, and Noir” was a fascinating and thoroughly entertaining evening that featured five short silent films exploring the melodramatic mode, with original scores performed by the students.

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Second annual Silent Film Festival to run September 6-9

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by Mike Telin

When you create something successful, people want more. Such is the case with the Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium, which made its debut in January of 2022. “People kept asking me when I was going to do it again,” Festival founder Emily Laurance said over coffee.

The second edition of the Festival, which runs September 6-9, will include screenings of five films, each with live accompanying music, at three locations around Cleveland.

Laurance, a visiting associate professor of musicology at Oberlin Conservatory, noted that Colorado-based Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra will be returning, and the partnership with the Cinematheque at the Cleveland Institute of Art continues as well.

“This year we’re bringing in noted theater organist Clark Wilson, and the Western Reserve Theater Organ Society and Radio on the Lake Theater are new partnerships.” New venues include Masonic Auditorium and Cleveland Museum of Art. Click here for tickets and more information.

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Oberlin students add their personal touch to silent films at the Birenbaum (Feb. 15)

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by Stephanie Manning

What do you get when you combine the sounds of an organ, accordion, guitar, violin, and piano? A creative soundtrack to Les Vampires, of course.

This unusual ensemble made up one of three groups from “Performing Silent Film Scores from Historic Photoplay Music,” an Oberlin Conservatory Winter Term project led by Oberlin musicology professor Emily Laurance with the assistance of Rodney Sauer, director of the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Using resources from Sauer and his group, the students in the project compiled their own scores to a variety of silent film selections, culminating in a performance on Tuesday, February 15 as part of the inaugural Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium.

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Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium: The Fascinating Life of John Stepan Zamecnik
(second of two articles)

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by Mike Telin

Until recently, only a select few would have recognized the name John Stepan Zamecnik (1872–1953) if it had come up in conversation. But in the past few months the Cleveland-born violinist and composer is experiencing a resurgence. His music and accomplishments are being featured as part of the Cleveland Arts Prize Past Masters Project. And on Sunday, February 13 at 3:00 pm at the Hermit Club, Zamecnik’s music and life will take center stage during the opening event of the inaugural Cleveland Silent Film Festival and Colloquium.

The program will include chamber works by Zamecnik and his mentor, Antonín Dvořák, performed by violinists Isabel Trautwein, Alicia Koelz, and Katherine Bormann, violist Eric Wong, cellist Tanya Ell, clarinetist Robert Woolfrey, and pianist Rodney Sauer, who is also the director of the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, and who will deliver remarks on Sunday. Click here for tickets and here to read the previous article in this series, an overview of the Festival. A complete list of events and ticket information can be found at the end of this article.

In addition to selected movements from Zamecnik’s String Quartette in B-flat and Trio for Piano, Violin, and Cello, the concert will include three of the composer’s Photoplay Scenes: Ode to Spring (1923), A Gruesome Tale (1922), and Bon Vivant (1917). 

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