Written by Gina Cielo
The Harding Wind Ensemble and Harding Film Club will host a performance and showing of the 1922 silent film “Cops” Tuesday, Oct. 19, at 7 p.m. in the Administration Auditorium.Dr. Mike Chance, associate professor of music and director of instrumental activities at Harding, will conduct the performance. Chance said he came up with the idea of hosting a silent film last May.”I began looking for something different, something unusual, something that would expand the participation opportunities for the Wind Ensemble,” Chance said.After much research, Chance discovered Ben Model, a film historian and composer associated with the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York. Model agreed to let Harding use his original accompaniment to put on “Cops.””It’s very jazzy, very that era of music,” said senior Erin Bradley, a member of the Wind Ensemble.The performance on Tuesday will have three parts, Chance said. The first is a short informational session, which is intended to familiarize the audience with the silent film technique and the classic comedic style of Buster Keaton, the lead actor of “Cops.”The informational session will lead into a series of movie trailers from the 1920s. The trailers have been taken from the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, and the point of the trailers is to make the audience feel as though they are at a movie theater, Chance said.The main part of the performance will be the showing of “Cops” with the Wind Ensemble performing the accompaniment written by Model. According to Chance, the film is a classic and the performance is far different from anything Harding has ever done.”I think it will be an unusual experience,” Chance said. “It’s the first thing of this nature we have ever tried to do.”The Wind Ensemble has been practicing for the past five weeks to prepare for the performance. A select group of 25 students was chosen to play for the show. Bradley said she became interested immediately when Chance showed the silent film at their first rehearsal.”You get to see the progression of film, and how different it has become,” Bradley said.Chance and Bradley both said they are excited for the unusual performance and hope many people, including those from the community, will come out and support them.”I think there is sort of a lost art that this brings to campus for the first time,” Chance said.
