The Lost Victrola Sessions -The Violinist
Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music! A film by Winsome Brown, music composed by Dave Soldier, and performed by Rebecca Cherry.
ABOUT
The Violinist Performance Concert is a 55 minute concert that seamlessly weaves live music, experimental film, live video, and theatrical staging. With lush music by Dave Soldier, a ravishing black and white silent film by Winsome Brown, and virtuosic live performances by Rebecca Cherry (violin), and Sean Hagerty (electronics) with piano. The Violinist Performance Concert featuring Rebecca Cherry is a thrilling and unforgettable musical and visual experience that explores the space between the performer and the performance.
“Resolutely uninterested in stylistic limits, Dave Soldier makes conventional eclecticism seem academically staid. In this compilation of chamber works composed from 1986 to 2006, he draws on (and juxtaposes) everything from polkas to soaring rock guitar solos, from Grappelli-style jazz to neo-Baroquery, with 19th-century salon music and Spike Jones-inspired zaniness along the way.”
The New York Times, naming Dave Soldier’s “Chamber Music” one of the best classical releases of 2007
THE MUSIC
click track to listen...
- MATA HARI, BALLERINA DE JAVA
- BRICKTOP
- TOGETHERNESS BLUES
- ALEGRIA EN LA CUEVA VIEJA
- BELVEDERE
- BRIAN'S LAMENT
- PRELUDE
- DUO FOR VIOLIN AND MEADE LUX LEWIS
- LI YUEN (FOUNTAIN OF BEAUTY)
- A BOY HAS NEVER WEPT NOR DASHED A THOUSAND KIM
- THE UNFOLDING OPIUM POPPY
THE PERFORMANCE CONCERT TRAILER
Virtuosic, moody, lush, evocative. 11 pieces by Dave Soldier collectively known as “The Complete Victrola Sessions.” “Found” recordings by a mythical Russian violin virtuoso c. 1913 that include solo pieces for violin, solo pieces for piano, duets, and trios with electronics. Piercing and boundary-crossing.
THE FILM
THE FILM'S TRAILER
Winsome Brown’s film “The Violinist” is a 16 mm black and white experimental gothic narrative shot by leading avant-garde filmmaker Jennifer Reeves with a Bolex camera. It tells the story of Russian violin virtuoso Rebecca Chernyakov (embodied by our live violinist Rebecca Cherry) who arrives in New York in 1913 and quickly falls in love with a dangerous demimondain played by Ken Roht, who introduces her to the speakeasies, opium dens, and dark places of the City. Rebecca’s experiences with opium intertwine with her obsession for the stranger until she cannot separate one passion from the other, leading her inexorably to addiction, a terrible fall from grace, and personal and artistic cataclysm.
Apart from its themes of music and intoxication, the film explores the world of dance. Ken Roht, who was principal choreographer and a performer for experimental theatre genius Reza Abdoh, gives a stunning physical performance, writhing like smoke and springing like a panther throughout the film. In rich back-room scenes, copulating bodies rise, entwine, and fall like waves. Leading New York dancer Ariane Anthony gives a jaunty old school burlesque.
Featuring George Steel, Paula Malcomson (Trixie on HBO’s Deadwood), cult favorite O-Lan Jones, and many other luminaries from the worlds of art, music, film, and experimental theatre.
THE SPACE BETWEEN
Violinist Rebecca Cherry is the both the protagonist on stage and screen, such that her violin becomes the voice that leads us through the tale of corruption and loss. Live backstage video feed gives a view into the off-stage life of a concert performer, highlighting the complex relationship between the public and the private, between art and life.