Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles: With a tear-jerking standing ovation in an unusually full cinema for a Sunday afternoon screening, the Academy Museum successfully gives new musical life to Dovzhenko’s famous classic, Earth (1930), a film regarded as one of the best ever made by both academics and fans alike. The composer behind the new music work is Luke Corradine, a British-italian who has amassed a rather impressive list of music film credits since 2001. What is unique, to my ears at least, is the sensitivity with which the composer has tackled the new score, the first ever by a non-Ukrainian. Corradine has spent several years living in Ukraine, a substantial advantage here. The resulting work is Prokovief at times, but also Beethoven, Frank Zappa, Keith Jarrett and then some. There are several bars dedicated to Eastern European folklore, all coming together in a rather fluid language, which is both classic and bold modern at times.
On piano, sailing through over one thousand eight hundred bars of music, is Grammy nominated Aron Kallay, a name some of you will recognise for his association with the Microfest Festival in Los Angeles.
Dovzhenko’s Zemlya - Earth in its English translation - breathes new life with this daring and energetic new music work, the film’s message suddenly more poignant and not so historically remote.
I have, by the way, decided to sign myself up for the rest of the Academy Museum’s Silent Sundays program which they open with Zemlya, showcasing the best of the best from early cinema, every Sunday at 2pm until August 27th.