Timothy Brock (born 1963) is an American conductor and composer specializing in concert works of the early 20th century, orchestral performance practices of the 1920s and 1930s, and live performances to accompany silent film.
Timothy Brock (born 1963) is an American conductor and composer specializing in concert works of the early 20th century, orchestral performance practices of the 1920s and 1930s, and live performances to accompany silent film.
Brock has restored silent film scores for various films including Dmitri Shostakovich's only silent film score, The New Babylon (Новый Вавилон) (1929), [1] Manilo Mazza's Italian epic, Cabiria (1913), [2] Erik Satie's dadaist score, Entr'acte (1924) [3] and George Antheil's score to Ballet mécanique (1924). [3] Other film-score restorations include Max Butting's Opus I (1920), Camille Saint-Saëns' L'Assassinat du duc de Guise (1908) and Ildebrando Pizzetti's Sinfonia del fuoco (1914).
In 1998, the Charlie Chaplin estate commissioned Brock to restore the Chaplin-composed score to Modern Times . [4] Brock then restored 11 more Chaplin silent feature and short scores through 2012, including City Lights (1931), [5] The Gold Rush (1924), [6] and The Circus (1928). [7] In 2004, Brock transcribed some 13 hours of unheard Chaplin compositions from a newly discovered acetate recording of Chaplin composing on the piano. This resulted in the creation of a new score for Chaplin's feature drama A Woman of Paris (1923), [8] a work that Brock has conducted in concert a number of times, including at Cinema Ritrovato 2005 in Bologna, the Kino Babylon in Berlin in 2011, as well as a studio recording made with Orchestra Citta Aperta in Rome and London, with whom he has also conducted a complete recording of The Gold Rush in 2012.
Brock has written 27 original scores for silent film, including Miss Europe (Orchestre National de Lyon), [9] Steamboat Bill, Jr. (Berner Symphonie-Orchester), [10] Sunrise (20th Century Fox), The Cameraman (Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra), [11] Burlesque on Carmen (Teatro Zarzuela, Madrid) [12] and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Brussels Philharmonic/BMG). [13] Brock's long-standing relationship with the world-leading film-preservation institution, the Cineteca di Bologna, has resulted in 7 scores. Among them are Nosferatu (1922), [14] Lady Windermere's Fan (1925), [15] 3 Bad Men (1926) [16] and Feu Mathias Pascal (1926). [17]
Brock's concert works include three symphonies, three concertos, a cantata, two operas, and a number of individual orchestral pieces. In 1995 he received a composer fellowship from the Artist Trust Foundation, during which he composed his first opera Billy (1995, libretto by Bryan Willis), the Divertimento: Five Picture-Postcards for Orchestra, and his second opera, Mudhoney (1998, adaptation of the original Friday Locke screenplay by the composer and Bryan Willis). In 1999, he was commissioned to compose an orchestral song cycle for soprano Cyndia Sieden: The Funeral of Youth, four orchestral settings to four poems of the English poet Rupert Brooke.
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered one of the film industry's most important figures. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both accolade and controversy.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror is a 1922 silent German Expressionist vampire film directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife of his estate agent and brings the plague to their town.
Joby Talbot is a British composer. He has written for a wide variety of purposes, with a broad range of styles, including instrumental and vocal concert music, film and television scores, pop arrangements and works for dance. He is known, to sometimes disparate audiences, for quite different works.
Kino Lorber is an international film distribution company based in New York City. Founded in 1977, it was originally known as Kino International until it was acquired by and merged into Lorber HT Digital in 2009. It specializes in art house films, such as documentary films, classic and rarely seen films from earlier periods in the history of cinema, and world cinema. In addition to theatrical distribution, Kino Lorber releases films in the home entertainment market and has its own streaming services for its digital library.
Carl Davis was an American-born British conductor and composer. He wrote music for more than 100 television programmes (notably the landmark ITV series The World At War and BBC's Pride and Prejudice, created new scores for concert and cinema performances of vintage silent movies and composed many film, ballet and concert scores that were performed worldwide, including the Liverpool Oratorio in 1991. Davis's publisher was Faber Music.
Kevin Brownlow is a British film historian, television documentary-maker, filmmaker, author, and film editor. He is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era, having become interested in silent film at the age of eleven. This interest grew into a career spent documenting and restoring film. Brownlow has rescued many silent films and their history. His initiative in interviewing many largely forgotten, elderly film pioneers in the 1960s and 1970s preserved a legacy of early mass-entertainment cinema. He received an Academy Honorary Award at the 2nd Annual Governors Awards given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on 13 November 2010. This was the first occasion on which an Academy Honorary Award was given to a film preservationist.
Sydney Earl Chaplin was an American actor. He was the second son of Charlie Chaplin and Lita Grey. One of his major roles was in his father's film Limelight (1952). In theater, Chaplin won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his 1957 performance in Bells Are Ringing.
A Burlesque on Carmen is Charlie Chaplin's thirteenth film for Essanay Studios, originally released as Carmen on December 18, 1915. Chaplin played the leading man and Edna Purviance played Carmen. The film is a parody of Cecil B. DeMille's Carmen 1915, which was itself an interpretation of the popular novella Carmen by Prosper Mérimée.
The Club Foot Orchestra is a musical ensemble known for their silent film scores. Their influences include Eastern European folk music, impressionism, and jazz fusion; The New Yorker described their style as "music that bubbles up from the intersection of aesthetics and the id."
City Noir is a symphonic work by the composer John Adams. A primary inspiration for the piece is the work of historian Kevin Starr on urban California in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The composer characterizes the work as "jazz-inflected symphonic music", citing the French composer Darius Milhaud as originator of this trend. It has a duration of 35 minutes, features solos for alto saxophone, trumpet, trombone, horn, viola, and double bass, and has three movements:
Emilio Luigi Carlo Giuseppe Maria Ghione, known as Emilio Ghione, was an Italian silent film actor, director and screenwriter. Ghione was best known for writing, directing, and starring in the Za La Mort series of adventure films, in which Ghione played a likeable French Apache and 'honest outlaw'. Ghione directed, wrote, and acted in every genre of film, and directed some of the most famous stars of the time, including Francesca Bertini, Lina Cavalieri, Alberto Collo, and Hesperia. After his final film role in 1926, Ghione briefly performed on a theatrical tour of Italy. Ghione wrote three novels based around his Za La Mort character, an autobiography, and an essay on Italian Silent Cinema, before his death from tuberculosis in 1930.
Gerhard Gruber is an Austrian composer and piano player. As accompanist for silent films, he has become the leading authority in Austria since 1988.
The Misfortunes of an Explorer is a 1900 French silent trick film by Georges Méliès.
Edison Studio is a collective of composers and an electroacoustic music ensemble. It was founded in Rome in 1993 by the composers Mauro Cardi, Luigi Ceccarelli, Fabio Cifariello Ciardi e Alessandro Cipriani.
Soundings is a single-movement orchestral composition by the American composer John Williams. It was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the inaugural season of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It was first performed on October 25, 2003, by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the direction of Williams.
At the Royal Majestic is an organ concerto by the American composer Terry Riley. The work was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Its world premiere was given by the organist Cameron Carpenter and the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the direction of John Adams at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on April 11, 2014.
Remo Anzovino is an Italian composer, musician and criminal lawyer.
Mauro Cardi is an Italian composer.
The Witch is a 1906 French short silent film by Georges Méliès. The film is named for a witch, Carabosse, who tells a poor troubadour that he is destined to rescue a damsel in distress, but demands a high price for a magic charm to help the troubadour in his quest. When the troubadour cheats the witch to obtain the magic charm, she sets out in pursuit of him, and puts various obstacles in his way before finally being vanquished by forces of good.
A Movie Trip Through Filmland is a 1921 American silent film directed by Paul Fenton.
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