From the "Not Just for Hymns" department...

[KB7DQH]

Church organist pulls out the stops to revive vampire classic film Friday
Organist will improvise to 'Nosferatu'

    By Roger McBain
    Posted October 13, 2011 at 3 a.m.

mcbainr@courierpress.com 812-464-7520

Its may seem early to open the organ and resurrect a classic cinematic tale of the undead with live music, but the sanctuary at First Presbyterian Church was already booked for Halloween weekend, explains Robert Nicholls.

Nicholls, the church's music director and organist, had considered playing pipe organ accompaniment for a screening of "Nosferatu," F.W. Murnau's 1922 vampire movie, the week before Halloween, he said. The church's pastor, the Rev. Kevin Fleming, planned to be out of town then, however, "and he didn't want to miss it," said the organist.

That's how "Nosferatu" wound up scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Friday, opening the church's autumn arts series of free, public presentations.

Nicholls came up with the idea of using the church's mechanical action pipe organ to accompany a silent movie from other keyboard players he's competed with in organ improvisation contests over the years.

"Everybody I know who improvises says, 'Oh, it's great fun, you'll love this,'" he said.

"I just thought, 'Well, why not? Here's a perfect venue and a perfect instrument to do one of these.'"

The church's organ, built by C.B. Fisk, is only a couple decades old, but some of its 19,000 pipes date back to the late 19th century, and its mechanical action is similar to mechanisms organists used long before 1897, when Bram Stoker wrote "Dracula," the book Murnau adapted (without Stoker's family's permission) for his black-and-white silent film.

Nicholls has been reading "Dracula" and researching the film to prepare his music for the screening.

His accompaniment will be improvisational in that he doesn't have sheet music written for the film, but he has been practicing for the event, playing the organ while watching the movie on a small, portable DVD player propped up on the console's music stand.

When Friday comes, "when the cock crows near the end, I'm ready for that. When they get into the ship to cross the Black Sea, I've got some special mariner-type music," he said.

The movie will open a series of five public presentations offered at First Presbyterian Church this season. Here's the rest of the series:

Oct. 28 — Philip Gulley, a Quaker minister, novelist, essayist and theologian, will lecture at 7 p.m.

Nov. 6 — The American Boychoir will perform at 7 p.m.

Dec. 4 — Robert Nicholls will play works by Marcel Dupré and Olivier Messiaen in an organ recital with interpretive slide show at 4 p.m.

Dec. 18 — The First Presbyterian choir will sing the Service of Advent lessons and Carols and selections from George Frideric Handel's "Messiah," Part 1.

For information, visit www.firstpresevansville.com or call 812-423-6297.

And so begins the Halloween Organ Concert season...

Eric
KB7DQH

[KB7DQH]

Pipe organs and Tesla coils ??? ??? ???

Bjork Premieres Multimedia 'Biophilia' at Spectacular Iceland Concert



"Craving miracles," Björk sang, enunciating each syllable like an eager child, in "Thunderbolt," the first song of her remarkable opening-night show at the concert hall Harpa in Reykjavík, Iceland last night. Then, surrounded by 24 female singers in shimmering gold and blue robes and an armory of invented instruments such as the gameleste – a hybrid of a celeste and an Indonesian gamelan – and a custom-built pipe organ that seemed to play itself (thanks to a digital interface with an iPad), Björk conjured her own miracle: a large circular cage that descended from the rigging over the stage. Inside, two large Tesla coils threw lightning at each other at an insistent tempo that triggered, somewhere in the electronics, a squishy bass line that could have come from a late-Seventies disco record. It was only the first time last night – the first of nine concerts here over the next three weeks – that Björk demonstrated a nifty truth about her new album, Biophilia: It is a record that must be seen as it is being heard.

According to an essay on display in the lobby, along with half a dozen video screens showing graphics and film clips associated with the album, biophilia is an ancient philosophical notion that the orbits of the sun, moon and planets are reflected in musical harmony and movement. Biophilia, the album, goes further. Björk likens the human emotions – love, physical obsession, changing moods, violent hurt – in songs such as "Mutual Core," "Moon" and "Virus" to natural phenomena: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, lunar phases and contagious disease. In the show, a pre-recorded David Attenborough served as narrator, introducing each song's theme like a voice from heaven with a Nova-documentary accent.

But the intimate setting – a small band (Matt Robertson on electronics; keyboard player Jons Sims; percussionist Manu Delago) and the Graduale Nobili, a local choir, squeezed onto a square platform surrounded by 800 people in one of Harpa's small theaters – made Björk's cosmos feel within easy reach. "We mimic the openness," she sang with delight in "Crystalline," a mix of space-funk strut and toy-factory jingle (thanks to the gameleste). In "Moon," the choir's silvery voices coated Björk's yelps and coos like wraparound light. And during "Dark Matter," you could see Björk's impish delight as she emphatically slapped her iPad, setting off explosions of church organ. She was so close to her audience that one could also make out individual strands in her giant orange-cotton-candy hairpiece, a continent in itself.

'Biophilia' in Action
Björk's first night at Harpa, a lavish new arts complex on Reykjavik's harbor, marked the opening of Iceland Airwaves, the annual festival sponsored by the national airline, Icelandair. (More than 250 acts, most of them Icelandic, are performing in the city through October 16th.) Class is in session at Harpa as well. As part of her residency, Björk has set up daily workshops for local schoolchildren in which teachers lead discussions about music, nature and technology with the aid of apps Björk generated to go with the album's concept. The students then explore the harmonic possibilities themselves on iPads and laptops. At the end of every session, each child takes home a USB stick with his or her new compositions.

Björk showed off some of her extra homework during the concert, breaking away from the new material to play rearranged versions of older songs. "Hidden Place" from 2001's Vespertine was an easy fit, with its glistening coat of harmonies and gentle-Kraftwerk synthesizer riff. "Isobel" combined marching-drum rolls with the punctuative gulp of dub reggae, while the Tesla coils reappeared to spit the rhythm for Björk and her bouncing choristers in the ecstatic finale, "Declare Independence." But there was always spectacle enough in Björk's voice: those operatic leaps in tone; the air-cutting quality of those impossibly long clean notes. In "Solstice" from Biophilia, she performed alone, with her iPad. "Remember that you are," she sang, "a light-bearer receiving radiance from others." There was, in the way Björk chewed and emitted the words, plenty of illumination to go around.   

Eric
KB7DQH

[KB7DQH]

Another screening of "Nosferatu" accompanied by a pipe organ... But this time accompanied by a Cinema Organ...

http://www.lansingcitypulse.com/lansing/article-6516-organist-accompanies-classic-silent-film-nosferatu.html

Organist accompanies classic silent film Nosferatu
by Jon James

In 1922, when the now-classic vampire film "Nosferatu" hit the big screen, the only sounds heard in a movie theater were performed live by an in-house organist.

This weekend, to celebrate Halloween, Lansing Theater Organ recreates the experience by accompanying the German horror film on a pipe organ originally installed in Lansing's Michigan Theater. The Barton organ was moved in the 1980s when the theater was converted into an office building. It´s housed in the Grand Ledge Opera House, where the accompaniment will take place.

Playing the organ will be Scott Smith, president of Lansing Theater Organ and Grand Ledge house organist. He also performed on the same organ from 1972 to 1980 as the Michigan Theater's last house organist.. Smith has played alongside many silent films, but this is his first performance of "Nosferatu."

"For its time, ´Nosferatu´ is really something to watch," Smith said. "It's a film that's always intrigued me."

Smith isn´t the first person to find the movie — which stars Max Schreck as the bloodthirsty Count Orlok —fascinating.

After the filmmakers were successfully sued by Bram Stoker's widow Florence — who argued that "Nosferatu" was too similar to her late husband´s novel, "Dracula" — all prints of the film were ordered to be destroyed. Some bootleg copies of the silent movie re-emerged in 1929, and it popped up again in the 1970s.

It has since become a favorite title among silent film fans and horror buffs.

For those familiar with "Nosferatu,"  this performance will be a bit different than watching it on DVD. Performing  alongside the film means plenty of improvisational playing for Smith, who has watched the film a number of times in preparation, writing some original themes and getting a feel for the movie.

He says that the biggest challenge is finding the balance between overplaying the scene by following the action of each character, and not establishing enough theme to enhance the scenes.

"If I'm doing my job right, 10 minutes into the film you won't even know I'm there," Smith said.

There will be certain "theme songs" for characters and settings, but to connect those melodies Smith will be following the film, creating music on the spot.

'Nosferatu'

Accompanied by organist Scott Smith

3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 30

Grand Ledge Opera House, 121 S. Bridge St., Grand Ledge

$10 fin advance; $12 at the door

(517) 372-0945

(517) 394-9881

www.lto-pops.org

Eric
KB7DQH

[KB7DQH]

The Stambaugh Auditorium pipe organ, recently restored, is getting into the act also...
This instrument will be accompanying a screening of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"...

http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/oct/27/pipe-organ-to-accompany-screening-of-hun/

YOUNGSTOWN

It will be a Halloween show the likes of which haven't been seen since the 1920s.

At 2 p.m. Saturday at Stambaugh Auditorium, the 1923 silent movie "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" will be screened, accompanied by live pipe- organ music by Todd Wilson of Cleveland.

Wilson will play the newly refurbished pipe organ at Stambaugh as the movie plays, simulating the experience of the early days of movie theaters. He will use his own original score.

"Todd will do an improvisatory accompaniment to the film itself, just as was done in the movie theaters when silent films were new," said Ron Gould, Stambaugh's organ specialist and member of the board of directors.

"It is his special area of expertise," Gould continued. "The style of the music fluctuates throughout in keeping with the mood of the scenes depicted in the film."

A $1.5 million refurbishment of the pipe organ at Stambaugh was completed last year, making Saturday's event possible.

"Now that we have an organ that can do this kind of thing with distinction, I can promise you an afternoon that will be truly special," said Gould.

Wilson is director of music and organist at the Church of the Covenant (Presbyterian) in Cleveland, where he heads a program of choirs as well as a concert series. He is also head of the organ department at the Cleveland Institute of Music and organ curator of the recently restored E. M. Skinner organ at Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra.

Saturday's performance is free, but reservations are required. Call 330-747-5175, or go to stambaughauditorium.com. Tickets can be picked up at the door.

"The Hunchback of Notre Dame," starring Lon Chaney as Quasimodo, is the tragic story of a deformed and tortured bell ringer at a cathedral in 15th-century Paris.

Saturday's event is recommended for children age 10 and up. The film will be followed by a children's costume party with prizes. Refreshments will be served by costumed members of the Stambaugh Auditorium.

The Halloween show also will mark the first time a film has been screened in Stambaugh, and special equipment has been brought in for the event, according to a news release from the auditorium.

Eric
KB7DQH

[KB7DQH]

http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20111027/ENTERTAINMENT/110270311/The-sound-fright-takes-stage?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFrontpage%7Cp

Only one instrument, a 1929 16-rank pipe organ, will be the star of St. Thomas Episcopal Church's "Pipe Screams" concert at 7 p.m. Sunday, but the sound will be as dramatic. The seven people taking turns playing, including church Director of Music Stephen White, will also be in costume as they perform pieces that evoke the Halloween feel.

The sounds of Halloween may seem out of place in a church, but White said the night will give people a chance to not only hear something they're unaccustomed to on a Sunday in a pew, but will also give the public a chance to hear the pipe organ, which is unaltered from the time it was installed.

"The idea came about as sort of finding a way to sort of help educate the community about how the organ is not just a sad, funeral-type instrument or only to be heard in the context of worship," he said. "There are a lot of other things that can be done."

White said each player will perform one classical piece and one piece from such works as "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" and the Harry Potter films. The theme from "The Addams Family" will also be heard.

The music of horror and fantasy films, White said, is ever-present in our minds, even if it only comes to the surface every once in a while.

"You think about 'Friday the 13th,' you think about 'Jaws,' you think about those things; the thing that everybody remembers are the musical themes and they can hum them," White said. "They don't have to be musicians to get the fact that the music can evoke even that fear without the visual element there."

Also...

http://www.baristanet.com/2011/10/montclairs-central-presbyterian-church-celebrates-halloween-with-music-in-a-minor-mode/

In the mood for some sinister tunes to get into the Halloween spirit?

You and your kids may not recognize Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor by name, but once you hear it, you'll know you've heard one of the most famous organ pieces in the world in a creepy movie or haunted house attraction. Central Presbyterian Church organist Jonathan Hall will play this piece, along with other Halloween music, on the church's four-manual pipe organ in "Music in a Minor Mode," a short musical program dedicated to the season of ghosts and goblins, this Sunday (10/30), starting at 3 p.m.

Children and their parents are welcome to join Hall in costume in the choir loft and enjoy treats in the adjacent church building after the concert.  For more information about the free event, call 973-744-5340 or visit Central Presbyterian Church.

And the comment...

Bach organ in a church–it doesn't get any better than that. And anybody who will put on a blue wig for a performance is my kind of classical musician. I'm going to try and make this. Maybe I can even drag the adolescent, who knows, stranger things have happened

Eric
KB7DQH