San Francisco Silent Film Festival
This week’s Classical Californian is Rodney Sauer, pianist and director of the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Rodney has dedicated his career to bringing silent films to life through music. His early love for the piano eventually led him to explore the world of historic “photoplay” scores, inspiring him to form Mont Alto. Since then, Sauer has worked to recreate authentic musical experiences for classic films, drawing from original archives. At the San Francisco Silent Film Festival on November 12-16, he and his ensemble will continue this tradition, showing how music can turn silent images into vivid storytelling.
Schumann: Kinderszenen, Haschemann, Am Kamin, & Von Fremder Lander und Menschen, Nelson Friere, piano.
Joaquin Nin-Culmell: Tonadas No. 2, Sequidilla murciana, Baile de Burgos, & Alala Alicia De Laroccha, piano.
James Scott: Frog Legs Rag, Frank French and Scott Kirby, from the album Bucktown in the Nineties, Stomp Off CD 1306.
Lily Strictland: To Mission San Francisco from Southwestern Sketches. The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.
Gabriel Marie: Les Lauriers Rouges. The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
John Stepan Zamecnik: Regret. The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Unknown: Tango di Valentino. Hollywood, Original Music from the Thames Television Series by Carl Davis
Stephen Horne: Keep Me, from the CD Silent Sirens
J. Russell Robinson: Chanson Algerian, The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
