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Silent cinema, live magic
Sep 11, 2024
Natalia Zukerman
On Saturday, Sept. 7, Gordon Hall at Music Mountain was transformed into a time machine, transporting the audience for a 1920’s spectacular of silent films and live music. Featuring internationally acclaimed silent film musicians Donald Sosin and Joanna Seaton, the evening began with a singalong of songs by Gershwin, Irving Berlin and more. Lyrics for favorites like “Ain’t We Got Fun,” “Yes Sir That’s My Baby,” and “Ain’t Misbehavin’” were projected on the screen and Sosin and Seaton lead the crowd with an easeful joy. The couple then retreated to the side of the stage where they provided the live and improvised score for Buster Keaton’s 1922 short, “Cops,” and his 1924 comedy, “Sherlock Jr.”
Joanna Seaton and Donald Sosin, a husband-and-wife duo, have crafted a singular career, captivating audiences at some of the world’s most prestigious film festivals—New York, TriBeCa, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Telluride, and Yorkshire among them. Their performances have graced venerable institutions like MoMA, Film at Lincoln Center, the AFI Silver Theatre, and Moscow’s celebrated Lumière Gallery. Their melodic journey has taken them to far-flung locales such as the Thailand Silent Film Festival and the Jecheon International Music and Film Festival in South Korea. Notably, Seaton and Sosin have become a fixture at Italy’s renowned silent film festivals in Bologna and Pordenone, where they perform annually.
In addition to their festival appearances, they have brought their artistry to Yale, Harvard, Brown, Cornell, and Emory Universities, where they are frequently invited to present workshops on silent film scoring and songwriting. Their contributions to silent cinema are further immortalized in over sixty-five DVD scores for silent films, released by Criterion, Kino, Milestone, Flicker Alley, and other prominent labels.
Seaton, a Manhattan native with a degree in Theatre Arts from Cornell University, has been lauded by The New York Times as a “silvery soprano.” Her theatrical résumé spans more than eighty Off-Broadway, regional, and stock productions, and her vocal prowess has earned her a collaboration with jazz legend Dick Hyman at the 92nd Street Y. Sosin, originally from Rye, New York, and Munich, studied composition at the University of Michigan and Columbia University before spending years on Broadway. His compositions have been featured on PBS and TCM, as well as providing the sonic backdrop for network soap operas and contemporary films.
The duo delivered a raucous, high-energy score for the two Buster Keaton films, bringing an infectious spontaneity to every note. Remarkably, as they reminded the audience, Seaton and Sosin were improvising the entire performance, yet their music perfectly matched Keaton’s subtle wit, wild gags, and iconic physical comedy. Percussion, sound effects, and melody wove together effortlessly, amplifying the humor on screen and transforming the viewing into a riotous, laugh-out-loud experience. Their playful synergy with Keaton’s films made the music feel like an integral part of the action, rather than mere accompaniment.
The couple currently reside in Lakeville, where their shared love for film and music continues to enrich both their own lives and provide wonderful entertainment for the wider community.
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Desperately seeking Susan Seidelman
Sep 11, 2024
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On Thursday, Sept. 19 at 6 p.m., Haystack Book Talks will present a special evening with director Susan Seidelman, author of “Desperately Seeking Something: A Memoir About Movies, Mothers, and Material Girls.” Part of the Haystack Book Festival run by Michael Selleck, the event will take place at the Norfolk Library, featuring a conversation with Mark Erder after a screening of the 1984 classic, “Desperately Seeking Susan.”
Susan Seidelman’s fearless debut film, “Smithereens,” premiered in 1982 and was the first American indie film to ever compete at Cannes. Then came “Desperately Seeking Susan,” a smash hit that not only solidified her place in Hollywood but helped launch Madonna’s career. Her films, blending classic Hollywood storytelling with New York’s downtown energy, feature unconventional women navigating unique lives. Seidelman continued to shape pop culture into the ’90s, directing the pilot for “Sex and the City.” Four decades later, Seidelman’s stories are still as sharp, funny, and insightful as ever.
Susan Seidelman on set.Courtesy of MGM
Interview
Natalia Zukerman: How has it been for you watching the film all these years later?
Susan Seidelman: It’s been interesting to watch it with multi-generational audiences. You never know whether something’s going to pass the test of time, but I think it does.
NZ: You write in the opening of your memoir, “If how one sees the world is a reflection of who they are (and I believe it is), then you can look at the world reflected in any of my films and see little pieces of me. Like Where’s Waldo? I’m hidden somewhere in each of them.” So where are you hidden in “Desperately Seeking Susan?”
SS: Well, I’m not so hidden in that. I’m a little bit of both characters, really. I mean, I was a girl who grew up in the suburbs, but I was also that rebellious girl from the suburbs who moved to New York City to live a different kind of life. It’s really about wanting to be your authentic self, that within all of us, there’s this other person that we sometimes want to let out.
NZ: Was there pressure for you to top the success of “Susan”?
SS: You know, no one expected this movie to be successful. It was made for $5 million, which for a studio movie was low. We shot it in New York, and the studio in LA kind of thought, “Oh, it’s just a little bit of money, we’ll leave them alone.” And then surprisingly, Madonna became such a superstar at the exact moment that we were making the movie. That was something that we couldn’t have planned any better. So, suddenly the film got way more attention critically as well as commercially than we ever expected. I knew that at some point, people were looking over my shoulder saying, ‘What are you going to do next?’ People were paying attention.
NZ: And was that hard or demanding of you in a new way?
SS: There’s something in the film industry called “the sophomore slump” so I knew that whatever I did next was going to be viewed differently because of the success of “Susan.”
(Seidelman’s third film was “Making Mr. Right” which came out in 1987 and starred John Malkovich and Ann Magnuson.)
SS: “It’s an AI romantic comedy. It’s about a woman who falls in love with an android that she gets to program. It’s sort of a Pygmalion story. She creates what she thinks is the perfect man, and then she falls in love with her creation.
NZ: Tell me about “Sex and The City.” How did that come about?
SS: That came about because Darren Star was a fan of “Desperately Seeking Susan” and a few of my other movies that are about New York City as much as they are about the characters. He wanted “Sex and The City” to be about the women, but to also be about the city. So, he contacted me, which was interesting because I never really wanted to work in television. Back then, it was kind of like the ugly stepsister to the movie business. I mean, it was great for writers because there was some wonderful writing going on. But by the mid late 90s, HBO and Showtime really reinvented television and suddenly TV didn’t look like TV anymore — the language was bolder, the themes were more adult. So, when I got the script and I first heard it was going to be a pilot for a TV series, I was not that excited about it. And then I read the pilot, and I thought, ‘Wow, this is pretty amazing.’ The writing was smart, and it was about women in their mid 30s, and there weren’t that many shows that starred women of that age at that time.
NZ: So how old are you now, may I ask?
SS: 71
NZ: Incredible. And how do you feel?
SS: I feel good. I mean, I think another factor of why I wanted to write this book was because suddenly I felt I was old enough to kind of look back on my career with enough objectivity, with a filter of time, and with enough to say about it and maybe enough distance. And I can’t believe it’s been more than 40 years now. You know, I didn’t want to tell tales out of school or be snarky or vindictive. It wasn’t about airing dirty laundry or anything. I wanted to tell my story from the inside out. I mean after 40 years of reading other reviewers or people writing about what they thought I was doing or thought my motivation was, I thought it was time to do it myself.
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Joshua Smitth
An anticipated fall favorite event at The Smithfield Church is the now-annual virtuoso organ performance by Kent Tritle, organist for the New York Philharmonic, this year to be joined by Arthur Fiacco, Jr. on Cello. The concert will be held on Saturday, Sept. 14, at 3:30 p.m. Proceeds will benefit the Oratorio Society of New York where Tritle serves as Music Director.
For the past ten years, Tritle has performed an annual concert on the Smithfield Church’s historic tracker organ, a favorite of his. The program will include a variety of selections, from classical to modern, along with Tritle’s incomparable commentary on each. Selections will include organ solos and duets with cello, interpreting the works of Bach, Vivaldi and Mendelssohn, with two works by modern composers.
Tritle serves as the music director for several award-winning choral ensembles, including Musica Sacra and the Oratorio Society of New York, while also serving as Director of Cathedral Music and Organist at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
For the Smithfield concert, Tritle will be joined by Arthur Fiacco, Jr. with whom he has performed many times, usually with Tritle serving as conductor and Fiacco leading the orchestra’s cello section. It is rare to hear the two in a duet setting.
In addition to sitting as principal cellist of the organizations conducted by Tritle, Fiacco is also a member of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. He has performed at renowned music festivals, including Caramoor, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, Marlboro, Music Mountain and Lincoln Center Festivals. He has appeared with Broadway’s Patti LuPone as a soloist, harpsichordist Igor Kipnis, Meredith Monk and the Mark Morris Dance Group.
Fiacco’s cello was crafted in 1730 by Venetian master Carlo Tononi.
The suggested donation at the door is $25.00. A reception with the musicians will follow the concert. The Smithfield Church, located at 656 Smithfield Valley Road in Amenia, is handicapped accessible.
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