World Premiere: Harold Lloyd's The Freshman Scored and Performed by Berklee Silent Film Orchestra
Comedic genius Harold Lloyd enjoys some canine time in the classic silent film comedy <i>The Freshman</i>.
Image courtesy Harold Lloyd Entertainment
The Berklee Silent Film Orchestra (BSFO) will perform the world premiere of its new score to Harold Lloyd's classic romantic comedy, The Freshman, in the magnificent Coolidge Corner Theatre. One of the first 50 films chosen for preservation by the Library of Congress, The Freshman is one of comic genius Lloyd’s most successful and enduring films.
The BSFO, veterans of Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, and Boston’s Symphony Hall, are two-time recipients of the Boston Society of Film Critics’ Award of Merit. The outfit will conduct and perform its new score for this pioneering romantic comedy in an unforgettable, live-to-picture experience.
Tickets are available here, and are also available by phone at 617-734-2500, or in person during regular theater hours at the Coolidge box office at 290 Harvard Street in Brookline, Massachusetts.
About the Berklee Silent Film Orchestra (BSFO)
Recent praise for the BSFO: “…nothing short of thrilling. When the film concluded, over 1,000 people leapt to their feet, cheering. I can’t wait to hear the orchestra again.” —Leonard Maltin (Maltin on Movies and Entertainment Tonight) on the BSFO's performance at the 2016 San Francisco Silent Film Festival
“For 73 minutes, the world was wonderful.” — Delighted patron, following the BSFO’s performance of Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last!
The Berklee Silent Film Orchestra is dedicated to composing new, original scores for silent feature classics, and performing them live-to-picture. Based at Berklee, home to the world’s first undergraduate degree program in film scoring, the student orchestra composes its new works and performs them as an ensemble under the leadership of Professor Sheldon Mirowitz (Outside Providence, Missing in America). To date, the BSFO has scored and performed nine iconic silent features, including F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise, Faust, and The Last Laugh, Clarence Badger’s It, Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin, Buster Keaton’s Our Hospitality, E.A. Dupont’s Piccadilly and Varieté, and Rupert Julian’s The Phantom of the Opera, each commissioned by the Coolidge Corner Theatre’s Sounds of Silents program.
Mirowitz, a three-time Emmy nominee and artistic director of the BSFO, will discuss the process of creating a new, world-class score for a silent feature and performing it live-to-picture in a master class at the Coolidge on April 25.
About the Sounds of Silents Program at the Coolidge Corner Theatre
The Coolidge launched the Sounds of Silents in 2007 with a mission to present classic silent cinema on the big screen, accompanied by a live original score, performed by outstanding musicians. Since 2010, the initiative has commissioned eleven original compositions and their premiere performances from the Berklee Silent Film Orchestra.
Additional Concerts/Screenings of The Freshman
Following the Coolidge world premiere, there will be five additional Berklee Silent Film Orchestra concerts/screenings with The Freshman: the BSFO's New York debut on Saturday, May 20 in the gorgeous Tony Bennett Concert Hall at the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts; the west coast premiere on opening night of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival on Thursday, June 1; a concert/screening on Saturday, June 17, at the beautiful, jazz-age Cabot Theatre in Beverly, Massachusetts; a concert/screening kicking off the Nantucket Film Festival at the Dreamland Theatre on Tuesday, June 20; and a concert/screening on Thursday, June 22 at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center as part of the FILMUSIC Festival.