FILM

Discovery Green and KUHF-FM present KUHF Silent Film Concerts. At the Anheuser-Busch Stage and Fondren Performance Space. Houston Public Radio presents a series of silent film screenings accompanied by live music. Back by popular demand, KUHF Houston Public Radio presents a new Silent Film Concert Series featuring unique film presentations combining silent films from the 1920s with live, original scores composed and performed by Texas musicians.

Friday, November 19:  Houston’s own Two Star Symphony premieres a new original score written especially for Unseen Cinema, a collection of early American avant-garde film 1894-1941 Clips from When Clouds Roll By, Fall of the House of Usher and Peer Gynt, featuring the young Charlton Heston.

Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1893-1941 premieres a comprehensive 20-program retrospective of the pre-Maya Deren inspired avant-garde film movement in America. Over 160 films in newly preserved and restored 35mm and 16mm film prints survey the hitherto unknown accomplishments of pioneer filmmakers working in the United States and abroad during the formative period of American film. The series postulates an innovative and often controversial view of experimental cinema as a product of avant-garde artists, of Hollywood directors, and of amateur movie-makers working collectively and as individuals at all levels of film production during the last decade of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.

Anthology Film Archives working in collaboration with 60 of the world's leading film archive collections including British Film Institute, George Eastman House, The Library of Congress, and The Museum of Modern Art, among many others, prepared preservation and restorations masters of these rare art films. Many of the films have not been available since their creation over a century ago, some have never been screened in public, and almost all have been unavailable in pristine projection prints until now.

Unseen Cinema film retrospective had its world premiere at the 23rd Moscow International Film Festival in June 2001 and its United States premiere at The Whitney Museum of American Art (July-September 2001). The films have been seen at museums, archives, universities, and theaters around the world. Over 50 venues have featured the touring programs making it one of the largest and perhaps the most viewed film retrospectives in history.

The films are available for worldwide exhibition as a complete 20 program retrospective or as individually selected single programs tailored to meet the needs of less ambitious presentations.

Two Star Symphony is Houston’s most unusual string ensemble performing all original music. Since its inception in 2002, the group has played many venues from small bars to vast auditoriums, collaborated with local theaters and traveled to both coasts to perform. Two Star Symphony is Jo Bird (viola/toy piano), Debra Brown (violin), Margaret Lejeune (cello/harp) and Jerry Ochoa(violin).

Their extended band, Two Star Symphony Orchestra includes Chris Bakos (Bass), John Duboise (clarinet), Cathy Power (marimba, bells), and Kirk Suddreath (percussion, drums). Each member’s unique background brings together an eclectic variety of music styles, including gypsy, rock, hip-hop, metal, classical and electronic. Their hunger to experiment and explore this art form has captured the imaginations of the young and old, despite whatever previously held notions they may have had of musical ensembles. Their love for composing soundtracks brought them to The Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Two Star Symphony Orchestra has performed live to films such as “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and 24 short films from Unseen Cinema:”Experimental Treasures from the World’s Leading Archives”.

Two Star Symphony continues to make breakthroughs in their collaborations with other artists. Two Star lived and rehearsed in New York City to bring the extended version of their composition “Goblin Attack” to the stages of the American Ballet Theater in the piece “Alchemy”, choreographed by Dominic Walsh of The Dominic Walsh Dance Company. Two Star Symphony Orchestra performed “The Gashlycrumb Tines” at Diverse Works. Music inspired by Edward Gorey’s book by the same name and music written by John Dubiose Two Star has also explored the world of theater with Bobbindoctrin Puppet Theater. They have seen their music turned into sophisticated and dark puppetry art in the three-part collaboration, Danse Macabre.