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.
Although it is often said that you cannot put new wine in old bottles — or wineskins, on Friday, March 25 at 7:30 pm in Kulas Music Hall at Baldwin Wallace University, the 
Earth and Air: String Orchestra is taking its final bow next week, but they won’t be going away quietly. The chamber ensemble has enlisted not one but two soloists for the occasion, more specifically two “Dueling Divas,” as violinists Andrew Sords and Mari Sato call their duo.
Case Western Reserve University’s string orchestra — the Case Camerata Chamber Orchestra led by conductor David Ellis — currently fields 25 student musicians mostly majoring in the sciences (two of whom are also music minors). For their Friday, April 5 concert at Harkness Chapel, Ellis invited five collaborators from his own professional group Earth and Air: String Orchestra to coach each section and sit principal for the performance. The results were noticeable: the group played with an admirable cohesion and rhythmic precision.
When Cleveland native David Ellis decided to study cello as an undergraduate at Oberlin Conservatory, he had an inkling that conducting might be in his future. He also had a feeling he should wait on that pursuit.
Atonal music holds a certain fascination, although it may make listeners recoil in horror. More than 100 years after inspiring a revolution in music, atonality remains unresolved in classical music culture. But the open-eared willing to forswear their fear can gain a foothold on a treacherous musical mountain.
Earth and Air: String Orchestra opened their fourth season this past Friday evening at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights with a charming continuation of their Mendelssohn String Symphonies project. Music Director David Ellis curated this Part Two in the pleasant spirit of a potpourri concert: the movements of the featured symphony were divided up, with other works by the composer played in between.
