Dallas Chamber Provides Soundtrack for VideoFest Kickoff Film
Dallas Chamber Symphony kicks off its fifth season Tuesday, Oct. 18, at 8 p.m. with a world premiere of a new score by film composer Joe Kraemer. The live performance will take place during a screening of F.W. Murnau’s silent film SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS at Dallas City Performance Hall in the downtown 
arts district.
“We are so excited to be celebrating the start of our fifth season with Joe Kraemer, who has written a powerful new score for Sunrise,” said Richard McKay, founder, conductor and artistic director of the Dallas Chamber Symphony.
Kraemer has written music for more than 100 TV movies and episodes, shorts, and feature-length films, such as JACK REACHER and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE ROGUE NATION. He is based in Los Angeles and will attend the Oct. 18 premiere and related events.
The film SUNRISE is a romantic drama released at the end of the silent era. It is notable for including a synchronized track of sound effects set to picture. It has been selected for preservation by the National Film Registry of the United States Library of Congress, and it received the Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Picture at the first Academy Awards in 1929. In addition, Janet Gaynor won the first Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in it.
The program is a collaboration with opening night for the 29th annual Dallas VideoFest, the nation’s oldest and largest video festival, and it is made possible in part by a grant from The Dallas Foundation.
“We are thrilled that our grant from the Adoue Fund to Dallas Chamber Symphony will expand access to the performance and screening of SUNRISE, including to audiences who might not otherwise be able to experience the creativity of a new score set to such an important silent film,” Mary Jalonick, The Dallas Foundation president and CEO, said.
McKay adds, “It is especially rewarding to be sharing this performance with so many new concertgoers — both in the concert hall and outside at Klyde Warren Park, through our first-ever simulcast, thanks to The Dallas Foundation.”
The Dallas Chamber Symphony is comprised of 40 musicians, all dedicated to a balance of programs that include unperformed and standard chamber repertory, contemporary music, staged works, and pieces with extra musical elements, such as film and dance. Tickets for the premiere are $19-$49 each, and discounts are available for students and seniors.
Films, presentations and showcase screenings with live music accompaniments, rarely seen anywhere else but a festival, screen during the 29th edition of the Dallas VideoFest from October 18-23, 2016. Overall, approximately 125 programs including narrative and documentary features, shorts, animation, and experimental videos will be screened during the 6-day Festival. This year’s VideoFest will also include the latest films from many local filmmakers.
This year, VideoFest features three special presentations with journalists discussing how the news reporting process has changed over time and continues to evolve. One presentation offers a look back at the WFAA archives housed at SMU Libraries with a panel of notable DFW journalists; another features a long-time editor of the CBS staple, “60 Minutes;” and the third, presented by Associate Publisher Doug Latino of The New York Times, covers the latest in Virtual Reality.
VideoFest is proud to partner with Women In Film.Dallas for its 15th anniversary of the Chick Flicks Festival with shorts and three feature films: HARDY, LEFT ON PEARL and QUAKER OATH. VideoFest also shows new works from Austin’s Rooster Teeth) with several of its co-creators here to talk about the future of independent studios and distribution.
VideoFest celebrates “Democracy through Documentary” with the 50th anniversary of Kartemquin Films, which boasts “a remarkable legacy of inspiring action through documentary” by showing two classics: HOOP DREAMS (1994 – Director’s Cut) and THE TRIALS OF MUHAMMAD ALI (2013) and the latest documentary, UNBROKEN GLASS (2016) with one of the three founders, Gordon Quinn in attendance. (http://www.ktq50.org/)
VideoFest stays true to itself by running the gamut from new documentaries of media, people and societal issues to narrative features
For more information, http://videofest.org/; http://www.wifdallas.org/; (http://www.roosterteeth.com/; http://www.ktq50.org/.
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