Silent Orchestra was formed in 1998 to bring live music and sound design to classic and contemporary silent films. They have performed their own new compositions for classic silent films at art house theaters, film festivals and art galleries since 1999. They have appeared on DVDs of classic

Silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized Sound recording and reproduction, recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) ...

s released by

Image Entertainment RLJ Entertainment (formerly Image Entertainment) is an American film production company and home video distributor, distributing film and television productions in North America, with approximately 3,200 exclusive DVD titles and approximately 34 ...

Biography

Silent Orchestra uses contemporary musical idioms to convey the art of pre-talkie films to modern audiences. The group was formed in 1998 by keyboardist, Carlos Garza and percussionist, Rich O'Meara and made their premiere in 1999. The group has performed new scores for films by F.W. Murnau,

Marcel L'Herbier Marcel L'Herbier (; 23 April 1888 – 26 November 1979) was a French filmmaker who achieved prominence as an avant-garde theorist and imaginative practitioner with a series of silent films in the 1920s. His career as a director continued unti ...

Germaine Dulac Germaine Dulac (; born Charlotte Elisabeth Germaine Saisset-Schneider; 17 November 1882 – 20 July 1942)Flitterman-Lewis 1996 was a French filmmaker, film theorist, journalist and critic. She was born in Amiens and moved to Paris in early chil ...

Nell Shipman Nell Shipman (born Helen Foster-Barham; October 25, 1892 – January 23, 1970) was a Canadian actress, author, screenwriter, producer, director, animal rights activist and animal trainer. Her works often had autobiographical elements to them and ...

and Charles Bryant at the

National Museum of Women in the Arts The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is "the first museum in the world solely dedicated" to championing women through the arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Since openin ...

, Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Gallery of Art. They are best known for their new score for the F.W. Murnau classic,

Nosferatu ''Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror'' (German: ''Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens'') is a 1922 silent German Expressionist horror film directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife ...

, A Symphony of Horror (1922), which they have performed at the American Film Institute (AFI) Silver Theater, the Savannah Film Festival, the National Gallery of Art and the

Percussive Arts Society Percussive Arts Society (PAS) is a non-profit organization for professional percussionists and percussion educators. It was founded in 1961 in the United States and has over 5,000 members in 40 American chapters, with another 28 chapters abroad. It ...

'
International Conference
Their performance of Nosferatu at the 2000

Virginia Film Festival The Virginia Film Festival is a film festival hosted by the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The festival is held annually, usually in late October or early November. History Cr ...

was followed by a premiere of

Shadow of the Vampire ''Shadow of the Vampire'' is a 2000 independent meta period horror comedy film directed by E. Elias Merhige, written by Steven Katz, and starring John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe. It is a fictionalized account of the making of the classi ...

, a fictionalized account of the making of Nosferatu. As festival director, Richard Herskowitz wrote in the festival wrap-up, "The opening night presentation was a double feature of Nosferatu and Shadow of the Vampire, with Silent Orchestra performing its majestic score for Nosferatu. Both the night's standing ovation and the acclaim registered in audience surveys expressed great appreciation for the revelatory effect of juxtaposing the two films and adding a contemporary score." The double feature was introduced by

David Shepard (film preservationist) David Haspel Shepard (October 22, 1940 – January 31, 2017)Grimes, William (February 5, 2017).. ''New York Times''. Retrieved 2017-02-08. was a film preservationist whose company, Film Preservation Associates, is responsible for many h ...

, who noted the forthcoming re-release of the Nosferatu, Special Edition DVD. As John Shea, writer for TNMC Movies noted, "We were informed by David Shepard, the archivist who restored the print, that this print along with the new soundtrack, will be released on DVD December 31, not coincidentally two days after the release of Shadow of the Vampire to theaters." Silent Orchestra employs contemporary and improvisational styles, as opposed to other groups that favor more traditional approaches. Regarding the hybrid composition/improvisation style of the duo, Carlos Garza noted in

Desson Thomson Desson Patrick Thomson is a former speechwriter for the Obama administration and former film critic for ''The Washington Post''. He was known as Desson Howe until 2003 when he changed his name after reuniting with his birth father. Biography ...

's article in the

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

, "We enjoy the excitement of being in front of an audience, the fact that things can go wrong ith the projection You have to be on your toes and be able to improvise." Their Nosferatu score was first released in 2000 in Dolby Surround by Kino Video. It was then released in Dolby Digital 5.0 on the Nosferatu - Special Edition DVD by Image Entertainment in 2001. In 2003, Image Entertainment released the DVD, Salome, Lot in Sodom with a Dolby Digital 5.0 score by Silent Orchestra and a stereo score by Marc-Olivier Dupin. In 2009, Silent Orchestra released their first CD, the score for Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror. Carlos Garza is a composer and musician with a career that includes art rock, new wave, pop, country, jazz and film composition. With his group, the young professionals, he was part of the legendary 9:30 Club scene in the early 1980s. He has also performed with Margot Chapman of the Starland Vocal Band. He ha
scored
15 feature films and more than 25 short films and animations. He was awarded best music in the 2009,

48 Hour Film Project The 48 Hour Film Project is an annual film competition in which teams of filmmakers are assigned a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialogue, and have 48 hours to create a short film containing those elements. The competition has been ac ...

for his score for "Star Pupil." Rich O'Meara is a percussionist and composer of works for marimba and ensemble that are performed throughout the world. His works for

marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...

vibraphone The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist ...

and other percussion instruments are published b
KPP
and have been performed and recorded in Europe, Asia and the Americas. His marimba piece, Restless has several times been performed during encores by

Evelyn Glennie Dame Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie, (born 19 July 1965) is a Scottish percussionist. She was selected as one of the two laureates for the Polar Music Prize of 2015. Early life Glennie was born in Methlick, Aberdeenshire in Scotland. The in ...

and performed by her on the PBS documentary DVD, "The Music Instinct, Science & Song." He has performed with One Earth Percussion Theatre, the Contemporary Music Forum, the Lenox Ensemble, and the New York-based Sky Music. He was featured as marimba soloist with the Women Composers Orchestra and under the direction of

Michel Camilo Michel Camilo (born April 4, 1954) is a Grammy-award winning pianist and composer from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He specializes in jazz, Latin and classical piano work. Camilo lists some of his main influences as Chick Corea, Keith Ja ...

, was a guest artist at the 1998 Latin-Caribbean Festival at the John F. Kennedy Center. With the new music ensemble Amaranth, he premiered Puzzle Piece for three marimbas. In 2010, Rich O'Meara appeared at th
8th International Patagonia Percussion Festival
to present a program of his works for solo and ensemble marimba.

Discography

CD, Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror (2010) DVD, Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror (2001, Image Entertainment) DVD, Salome/Lot in Sodom (2003, Image Entertainment)

Biography

Discography

Notes

External links