Improvising with silent film: a weekend for musicians.

Are you an experienced musical improviser? Would you like to develop your skills in working with silent film?

Yorkshire Silent Film Festival and More Music are working in partnership to develop a vibrant scene of improvising musicians primed to work with silent film. We hope that some of the participating musicians will become involved in the live-scored film programme at Morecambe Winter Gardens and elsewhere across the North. 

We are running a development weekend for improvising musicians in Morecambe over the weekend of 10th and 11th June.

The weekend is for musicians who are already able improvisers in any genre or style. It’s welcome (though not essential) if you have some experience of working with silent film - what matters most is that you have an interest in musical storytelling and an enthusiasm for collaboration.

This will be a practical weekend of learning through playing and experimentation. Participating musicians will explore how to ‘read’ a variety of different kinds of silent film and how to mould their improvising to the screen. We’ll work with narrative film, documentary, and experimental film, working solo and in duos and small ensembles.

If you’d like to express interest in taking part, please email Ben McCabe at More Music as soon as possible, and by Friday May 26th at the latest. Please include links to examples of your music if you have them. Please do not send audio or video files directly.

Please indicate whether you are available to be in Morecambe on either/both of 10th and 11th June. Priority will be given to those available for the whole weekend. 

Travel costs and a £150 honorarium will be paid to participating musicians, and accommodation provided in Morecambe.