Cleveland Silent Film Festival and Colloquium

A consortium of five area institutions has come together to put on a week-long Cleveland Silent Film Festival and Colloquium: Music That Once Filled the Silence. We kick off with a concert of J.S. Zamecnik’s chamber (and film) music at the historic (1928) Hermit Club performed by Rodney Sauer and members of the Cleveland Orchestra. Four silent classics featuring music by Zamecnik will be shown at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque and Oberlin’s beautifully restored Apollo Theater, three of them accompanied live by the renowned five-member Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Mont Alto’s director and chief arranger, Rodney Sauer, is working with students enrolled in a Winter Term class at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music on the art of locating, choosing, arranging, and performing historic silent movie music. He has also been invited to lead a workshop at the Cleveland Institute of Music. On Friday, Sauer will be the featured speaker at a Case Western Reserve University colloquium to which the public is invited.