SPECIAL EVENTS

2011 Cinema Arts Festival Houston is a unique, five-day film festival celebrating the visual, literary and performing arts. Works are shown not only in traditional theatrical venues but also via interactive video installations, live music and film performances, and outdoor projections.

John Ford’s UPSTREAM (1927) with the Donald Sosin Ensemble
Sunday, November 13, 1:00 PM, MFAH Brown Auditorium.
Featuring Joanna Seaton and students from the Shepherd School of Music.

Upstream is a backstage comedy/drama by director John Ford (Stagecoach, The Searchers) focusing on an egotistical actor and a young couple who partner in a vaudeville knife-throwing act. The film was considered lost, but in 2009 was rediscovered in the New Zealand Film Archive.

Donald Sosin has been enthralling audiences in the U.S. and Europe for more than 40 years. He performs regularly at major film festivals in America, Europe and China, including the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, where he first presented his original score for Upstream. Two years ago, Sosin appeared at the inaugural Cinema Arts Festival Houston accompanying the silent classic Peter Pan, leading a chorus of students from the MacGregor Elementary School.

He is the resident pianist for the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Museum of the Moving Image, and frequently accompanies silent films at other repertory houses and archives. Sosin has also premiered his orchestral scores on TCM and recorded numerous scores for DVD releases by Kino Video and other distributors.

Joanna Seaton, a singer and actress, has performed at venues throughout the country, including the Kennedy Center and the Rainbow Room. Her acting credits include leading roles in more than 70 productions of musicals and plays, in New York and at regional and stock theaters across the country, including the Kennedy Center.