Chetham's School of Music

Presented by Northern Silents.

A silent film with live, improvised score by Frame Ensemble.

One of the great silent films, GW Pabst’s Pandora’s Box is renowned for its sensational storyline, sparkling Weimar-period setting and the legendary, lead performance from its iconic star Louise Brooks. Following the rise and fall of Lulu (Brooks), a spirited but innocent showgirl whose sheer sexual magnetism wreaks havoc on the lives of men and women alike, the film was controversial in its day, then underappreciated for decades. Pandora’s Box now stands as an incredibly modern movie, and few stars of any era dazzle as bright as Louise Brooks.

NORTHERN SILENTS DOUBLE FILM OFFER

Get 15% off when you book full-price tickets for Pandora’s Box and The Big Parade (Saturday 11 November)
Book for both events in the same transaction and this discount will automatically apply to your tickets at check-out.

Frame Ensemble is Northern Silents’ resident ensemble

In 2018, violinist Irine Røsnes, cellist Liz Hanks, percussionist Trevor Bartlett, and pianist Jonny Best improvised a score for Metropolis at Sheffield’s Abbeydale Picture House. They enjoyed playing together so much that they decided to keep doing it.

Over the last four years, Frame has acquired a reputation for creating sophisticated and inventive improvised silent film scores. Their frequent Yorkshire Silent Film Festival performances at Abbeydale Picture House include The Great White Silence (also for York Concerts and Hull Truck), The Woman Men Long For (also at Hippodrome Silent Film Festival), Eisenstein’s Strike, Julien Duvivier’s Au Bonheur des Dames, and The Brilliant Biograph: Earliest Moving Images of Europe, 1897-1902. At Harrogate Theatre they’ve performed The Passion of Joan of Arc, and at Harrogate Odeon, Metropolis.

Frame has appeared regularly at York’s National Centre for Early Music since 2019, performing Nosferatu, Nanook of the North, The Phantom Carriage, and South. The quartet also made its debut at Chester’s Storyhouse with Nosferatu and Old Woollen, Leeds, with Pandora’s Box.

“…a brilliantly effective musical commentary on the 1929 Marlene Dietrich thriller The Woman Men Yearn For (*****), so persuasively argued that it was hard to believe they were making it up on the spot.” — David Kettle, Classical Music Critic, The Scotsman, April 2021 on Frame Ensemble’s The Woman Men Yearn For at Hippodrome Silent Film Festival.