Filmharmonia in Performance

The chamber music ensemble

Filmharmonia performs an original score commissioned by PFA for the Russian Constructivist sci–fi classic Aelita! This is an evening you will not want to miss-advance tickets are recommended (510-642-5249).

Filmharmonia recreates for modern audiences the excitement of the silent film experience, scoring historically authentic musical accompaniments to classic silent films and performing them on contemporary and antique instruments for an unforgettable effect.

Filmharmonia is ensemble founder Dennis James on piano, theremin, and sound effects; Amy Crocker on cello, cristal, and sound effects; and Robert Korda on Stroh phonoviolin and sound effects.

Aelita tells of three Russians-an engineer, a soldier, and a detective-who fly to Mars and become involved in a revolutionary uprising among the Martian people. While there, the engineer has a love affair with Aelita, Queen of Mars. The lavish art direction is the most famous attribute of Aelita-outlandish costumes by Alexandra Exter, and sets of the fantastic Martian landscape. Aelita is equally fascinating, though rarely cited, for its detailed look at life in the USSR: housing shortages and residual class conflicts are revealed to play havoc on personal lives. It is this that our satirically neurotic heroes attempt to escape. But, on Mars, technology itself has become the instrument for disenfranchising a whole group of people. The beautiful Aelita is played by Julia Solntseva, a film director in her own right and wife and collaborator of the great Ukrainian director Dovzhenko.