Silent/Sound Film Festival featuring a Live Performance of In C

In collaboration with Squeaky Wheel, Silent/Sound Film Festival is a free annual event that pairs local sound artists with a classic silent film. This event is family-friendly, held outdoors on the terrace of the Burchfield Penney Art Center. Squeaky Wheel's Silent/Sound Film Festival is co-sponsored by the Burchfield Penney Art Center, funded In part by the Andy Warhol foundation for the Visual Arts, National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). Part of M&T Second Fridays at the Burchfield Penney.

Live Performance of Terry Riley’s In C
Performed alongside commissioned video works by media artists

Delight your audio-visual senses during this one-time-only event - Instead of having a sound artist compose a score for a silent film, the Silent/Sound curators, (Jax Deluca, Don Metz and Brian Milbrand), thought it would be interesting to switch things up and invite some of Buffalo’s favorite video artists to compose new works to accompany a sound composition. Terry Riley’s polyphonic semi-improvisational sound piece was specifically chosen for it's significant ties to Buffalo's avant-garde heritage.

Sound performed by: Michael Colquhoun, Bass Flute; Jan Williams Percussion; John Bacon, Percussion; Don Metz, Electric Guitar; Amy Williams, Keyboard; Michael Miskuly, Violin; Johnthan Hepfer, Percussion; Alice Teyssier, Flute; Bryan Eckenrode, Cello.

Video artists include: Patrick Cain, Tony Conrad, Andrew Deutsch, Vince Mistretta, Scott Puccia and a collective work by Squeaky Wheel Board/Staff Members.

About the Composer: Terrence Mitchell Riley (b. 1935) is an American composer and performing musician intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement. His work has been deeply influenced by both jazz and Indian classical music. The piece to be performed, In C, was composed by Terry Riley in 1964 to be performed by groups of varying sizes. It is a response to the abstract academic serialist techniques used by composers in the mid-twentieth century and is often cited as the first minimalist composition.