presents
The Film Music of George Antheil:
The "Bad Boy" in Paris and Hollywood

A two-day festival presented by the Tufts University Department of Music, the Department of Film and Media Studies, the program in Music Engineering, and the Department of Media Arts in the School of the Museum of Arts

Featuring:
• The US premiere of a new version of Antheil's Ballet mécanique for solo piano and multiple loudspeakers
• The first American screening of a new 2K high-resolution print of the film Ballet mécanique by Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy with a surround-sound music track
• Rare films from Antheil's Hollywood years including Dementia and The Sniper
• a tribute to the legendary soprano and Antheil colleague Marni Nixon, the singing voice of My Fair Lady, The King and I, and West Side Story
• and much more

Monday March 6
12:00 noon
Guy Livingston colloquium: Drinks with the Dadaists
American pianist (now living in Holland) Livingston in the leading exponent of early 20th-century avant-garde piano music, championing the works of George Antheil, Leo Ornstein, Erik Satie, and Henry Cowell. His multimedia program incorporates music, film, visuals, and theater, including music by Antheil, Darius Milhaud, and Erik Satie, and visual and theatrical works by Man Ray, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Duchamp, Réné Clair, and others.
A light lunch will follow.

8:00 pm
Mary E Davis: Antheil in Paris
Davis is Dean of the School of Graduate Studies at Fashion Institute of New York (SUNY). A musicologist by training, she will speak about the cultural milieu of Paris in the 1920s and how it spawned so many great artists in music, literature, poetry, and graphic arts.
Daniel P. Robinson: Antheil as Hollywood composer
Robinson, a PhD candidate in musicology and instructor for both the music and media studies departments at The University at Buffalo, SUNY, will present a paper on Antheil's roles as a composer of concert music and film scores, as well as a prolific film music critic. The presentation will include excerpts from The Plainsman (Cecil B. DeMille, 1936).
Screening: The Sniper (Edward Dmytryk, 1952, opening 10 minutes. Music by Antheil)
A Tribute to Marni Nixon
Marni Nixon (1930-2016) was an accomplished actress and soprano who was best known for her work in Hollywood behind the scenes: dubbing the singing voices of Deborah Kerr, Natalie Wood, and Audrey Hepburn in some of their most famous rolls. Her first husband, Academy Award-winning composer Ernest Gold (Exodus) was a student of and orchestrator for George Antheil. Nixon herself sang the wordless soprano part on one of Antheil's most dramatic film scores, John Parker's 1955 Dementia.
Our tribute will include readings from Nixon's autobiography, I Could Have Sung All Night; film clips from My Fair Lady, The King and I, and West Side Story; and a rare screening of Dementia.

Tuesday March 7
12:00 noon
Paul Lehrman colloquium: What was George thinking?
Tufts Lecturer Lehrman will present a paper originally given at the New Interfaces for Musical Expression conference on Antheil's fanciful ideas for synchronizing 16 player pianos to perform his 1925 Ballet mécanique—and why they may not have been as farfetched as has long been assumed.
A light lunch will follow.

8:00 pm
Screening: Bad Boy Made Good (Ron Frank, 2006)
Award-winning documentary film on the history and revival of Antheil's Ballet mécanique.
Screening: Ballet mécanique (Fernand Léger/Dudley Murphy, 1924, music by Antheil)
A new high-definition restoration with Antheil's score, recorded in 1999 by Paul Lehrman, re-mixed in 5.1 surround sound by Gustavo Matamoros. All of the instrumental parts in this performance were played by a computer.
Bruce Posner: Reviving the Ballet mécanique
Film archivist Bruce Posner has curated numerous festivals and collections of historical cinema including the award-winning Unseen Cinema DVD set and Masterworks of American Avant-Garde Experimental Film Blu-Ray set. He will discuss the history of the Ballet mécanique film, its many versions, and its recent restorations under his supervision.
Ballet mécanique
A live performance of Antheil's score, arranged for solo piano (Guy Livingston) and eight loudspeakers accompanying the Léger/Murphy film. USA premiere.

This festival is funded in part by the Granoff Music Fund and the Toupin-Bolwell Fund.

2017 by The Ballet Mécanique Project. All rights reserved