The organizers of the newest installation of the Duncan Littlefair Great Speaker Series knew when they planned their event that its kick off had to be something truly out of this world to compete with ArtPrize.
Sure, the kick off night of the Power of Music, referred to as the “Prologue,” is a free public screening of the very first best picture Academy Award winner Wings (1927), and this silent classic will be accompanied by the original score, Catherine the Great, played on the church’s Austin/Allen Pipe Organ by Dr. Steven Ball – a scholar with extensive study in the area of pipe music and cinema. This night will enable people to experience firsthand how their relatives experienced cinema in the early days of film history, as most old theatres used to have an organ in the house.
But the real power of this program is the chance to enjoy a lecture/presentation by the Academy Award Winning film editor Richard Chew at the Sunday night Chapter One: Sound and Vision – The Art of Music in Movies (underwritten by Celebration! Cinemas).
Chew, born of Chinese immigrant parents in Los Angeles, went on to work over four decades on such ground-breaking films as Risky Business, My Favorite Year, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He won an Oscar for his work on Star Wars: A New Hope in 1977.
On Monday and Tuesday, Chew has selected two films to screen for free at Celebration! Cinema North and will then conduct a brief lecture about the films’ importance. For Monday, he selected to run the popular Risky Business (a film he edited and Tom Cruise became a household name after dancing in his undies to Bob Seger). The following night, The Intouchables, a film he admires for its use of music, will be screened for free, and immediately after, an informal lecture on the film will commence.
The inspiration for this new series came as a result of the DLGSS asking lifelong friends of Duncan what they could do to further enhance his legacy. It was almost unanimous that Duncan, in his private time with his friends, would turn their conversations to music and art.
“As our committee member Ruth Stein dug deeper with his friends, she discovered that Duncan believed artists were the vanguards of our society. But how do we illustrate that?” says DLGSS’ Ryan Kilpatrick, “Once we decided the series had to be about creation, the rest was easy. As we launch, the first round is devoted to music. We all have a perceived soundtrack to our lives. Everyone just naturally connects with music.”
This new Power of Music series will run over the next few months and is made possible via generous financial donations from Celebration! Cinemas, Spectrum Health Medical Group Neurosciences, and Meijer. See the
Power of Music website for the entire schedule and details on future speakers/programs.
Admission: All events are free, except lecture/presentation by Richard Chew, $12.50