Since 2013, Wooden Cities has presented holiday concerts at a number of Buffalo venues which featured performances of live, quasi-improvisatory scores to several early 20th century silent films, each composed by a different member of the ensemble.
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Wooden Cities creates live scores to a number of silent holiday films. The films, made between 1898 and 1925, map the full range of the silent film era, and include works by acclaimed directors Edwin S. Porter and D.W. Griffith, as well as lesser known artists like Frank Kleinschmidt. The films themselves have ranged from simple, non-narrative moving portraits to works with complex plots and elaborate imagery, and feature many of the most endearing aspects of silent film: the transparent special effects, melodramatic gestural acting, comically inexplicable edits, and, underneath it all, a warm, nostalgic poignancy.
Wooden Cities provides live soundtracks that by turns augment, mimic, comment on, or undercut the action onscreen. The scores—each written by past or current members of the ensemble—range from explicitly notated, leitmotif-dense compositions, to quasi-improvisatory free jazz outbursts. At times, the music directly mirrors the action on the screen, providing Carl Stalling-esque sonic narrations; other times, the music subversively undermines the film, revealing darker, more uncanny aspects only hinted at onscreen. In every case, the ensemble provides a dynamic energy, adding new dimensions and contemporary perspectives to these century-old films.
