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

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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…]

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.

[Read more…]

At the movies with the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra  

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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…]

Delving into the silent era:
Cleveland Silent Film Festival & Colloquium (first of two articles)

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by Mike Telin

When we think of film composers, the names Miklós Rózsa, John Williams, and Randy Newman immediately come to mind. But who were the important composers from the silent era?

Next week, a consortium of area arts organizations will come together to present a festival celebrating some of the major masterworks of silent cinema. To highlight the local connection, the inaugural Cleveland Silent Film Festival and Colloquium will focus on the music of Cleveland native and film music pioneer John Stepan Zamecnik.

The Festival kicks off on Sunday, February 13 at 3:00 pm at the Hermit Club, when violinist Isabel Trautwein and other members of The Cleveland Orchestra will join Rodney Sauer, music director of the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, in a concert of chamber works by Zamecnik and his mentor, Antonín Dvořák.

[Read more…]

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