Edinburgh Gothic – Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde Live! New music to an old story!
SUNDAY 15TH NOVEMBER 2015 SUMMERHALL (RED LECTURE THEATRE)
DOORS OPEN 7:00PM PROGRAMME STARTS 7:30PM
Earlier this year we were approached by UNESCO to help them with their annual RLS Day celebrations – staged mid November each year – to commemorate the birth of the late, great Scottish writer, Robert Louis Stevenson.
We mulled it over and some of the early ideas we chucked around included taking a ferry-load of pirates to Inchcolm island to watch Treasure Island – the Robert Newton version, naturally – and it’s still such an appealing idea that we may resurrect this in future years, substantial climatic differences notwithstanding!
However, the idea we eventually landed on, was to screen excerpts of the 1920 silent version of ‘Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde’ featuring the great, silent-era actor John Barrymore and to ask an Edinburgh based composer to score a new, contemporary soundtrack for it and perform it live. In a Victorian Veterinary College with a full band!
This original early silent horror was considered shocking in it’s day – critics said that it ‘encouraged immorality’ – although the scenes shown above just remind me of the average Saturday night in Musselburgh, to the 1920 cinema going public, John Barrymore’s Mr. Hyde was the epitome of cinematic evil.
He achieved part of Jekyll’s into Hyde without makeup, using only his facial contortions while in one scene, as Hyde reverts to Jekyll, one of Hyde’s prosthetic fingers can be seen to fly across the screen.
To accompany this piece of classic Gothic horror, we are delighted to be working with the composer Yoann Mylonakis. Originally from Paris, Yoann graduated from the Paris Conservatoire in piano and is now completing a master’s degree in Digital Composition and Performance at Edinburgh University.
As a performer, Yoann has given recitals internationally (St Martin in the Fields in London, Symi festival in Greece, also in Spain and across France). He premiered new works by composer Manolis Vlitakis in Paris and Berlin, as well as participated in many festivals as chamber musician, such as the Festival Pablo Casals in Prades.
In Scotland, he has recently collaborated as pianist and sound designer with musician Mike Vass, contributing to his new album to be released and toured early 2016.
For this event Yoann has worked with some of his fellow musicians and composer’s to create a vivid free-flowing contemporary soundtrack to the film which they will perform live to the movie on stage! We’re very much looking forward to this event and it promises to be one of the highlights of the festival!
The other performers are Sarah Gross (Flute): Sarah performed at the Jazz Bar both on the flute and vocals with the Edinburgh Balkan Music Project, and improvised on the flute for a collaborative live exhibition at the Hidden Door Festival. As a singer, Sarah’s choral experience includes performing as a member of the National Youth Choir of Scotland.
Matt Gio (French Horn) Matt held the position of Composer in Residence with both the NYU Symphony Orchestra and the Rowan Symphony Orchestra, and has taken the baton leading the Nodes Performing Arts New Music Collage, the Bard Conductors Orchestra, Edinburgh Composers Orchestra and the Rowan Wind Ensemble. Matt currently is the President of the Edinburgh Composers Orchestra.
Louis McHugh (Electronics) Louis is currently studying for a masters in digital composition and had work recently performed at the International Science Festival as well as Hidden Door Art Festival.
The performance will be at Summerhall and doors open at 7:00pm. The performance will start at 7:30pm for 30 minutes, following the interval we are also screening a programme of Edinburgh-made short horrors, thrillers and comedies (on a vaguely Gothic theme)
ranging from dark encounters with deadly policemen in Carter’s Ferguson’s noiresque police procedural ‘Deadringer’
We’ll have peculiar goings-on among the decidedly odd inhabitants of the village of Ricklesburgh in Chris & Russell Miller’s comedy web series ‘Last Exit To Ricklesburgh’
Other notable films include Simon Fox’s ‘The Demon Heart’ an experimental short that tells how a demons stokes the fires of lust,
Tim Fraser-Granados’ German-Expressionist influenced ‘The Sleeper’ is a striking supernatural horror short that eerily brings the night terrors to life!
There’s also Kevin Pickering’s ‘Waylay’ a tightly-told drama in which a down-and-out exacts a terrible revenge on his tormentors..
Edinburgh just got a tad more Gothic!!
For tickets and more info see:
For more information about RLS Day & the UNESCO City of literature, please see the link:
ESFF 