by Mike Telin
When we think of modern-era film composers, the names Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Danny Elfman, and Howard Shore immediately come to mind. But who was responsible for creating the music that accompanied films during the silent era?
During the past three and a half months, a group of Oberlin students have been diligently learning how to create film scores from a historical perspective.
Emily Laurance, a visiting associate professor of musicology at Oberlin Conservatory and executive director of the Cleveland Silent Film Festival and Colloquium, said during a telephone conversation that one of the objectives of her class — Music and Melodrama on Stage and Screen — was for the students “to get a feeling of music in melodrama, and to get a sense of the history of the silent film genre by learning how to compile a musical score.”
The class will culminate in a performance on Friday, May 10 at 7:00 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Transformer Station. [Read more…]
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.
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.
Until recently, only a select few would have recognized the name John Stepan Zamecnik (1872–1953)
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?