An improvisational duet between avant-garde electric cellist Chris White and silent film will be performed on Monday, September 18, at 9:00 pm in Park Hall. The performance is free and open to the public.
IC music school alum and renowned experimental electric cellist Chris White will improvise with Robert Weine's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Germany, 1919), one of the landmark films of German expressionism as well as an early model for both the horror and film noir genres.
An annual, much anticipated event in the Cinema Studies program in the Department of Cinema and Photography, Chris White’s original, live music musical interpretation of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari responds as much to the angular cinematography of the film as to the reactions of the audience to create a haunting, compelling visual and aural experience.
White's riveting improvisations combine with virtuoso technique to re-read Caligari through the aural contemporary soundscape of electrified expressionist modes. White’s mix of jazz, post-minimalism, sequencers, and tonal and textural experimentation with cello create nuanced and probing readings of this classic silent film.
At the premiere in Germany, a full orchestra accompanied the film playing from an original score. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was aggressively marketed as an Art film with a capital A to appeal to a more elite audience.
As this important work of international art cinema film toured the world, however, local exhibitors provided their own musicians. They interpreted the film through improvisation and compilations from silent film accompaniment books. For the New York premiere in 1921, for example, the score was compiled from the modernist music of Schoenberg, Debussy, Stravinsky, and Prokofiev -- an unusual tactic for film music.
Chris White is changing how audiences think about the cello. White's playing combines the vibrancy of bowed string instruments with the urgency of direct communication with an audience. White has performed in Europe, Canada, and the United States. While living in Spain, he played with flamenco, Celtic, and jazz groups. White completed a master's degree in music performance at Ithaca College. Since then he has published articles on the history of jazz cello in STRINGS (Spring '89) and Down Beat (Feb. '89).
White performed with his jazz quartet at the First World Cello Congress (June 1988), the Quanzaine de Montréal (April 1992), the New Directions Cello Festival (1995, 1997, and 2001) and at the sixth American Cello Congress in Maryland (2001). He also performs regularly as a classical cellist with the Binghamton Symphony.
White founded and directs the New Directions Cello Association and Festival, which organizes an annual festival dedicated to nonclassical music. The festival's artistic advisors include David Baker, Ron Carter, David Darling, Yo-Yo Ma, and Julian Lloyd Weber. Visit his website: Chris White, Jazz Cellist.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/2006091222492517