Helix Collective Presents Music with a Movie Camera

Helix Collective’s 10-piece film-music ensemble performs original soundtracks from Soviet films from the 1920s-80s and by composers from the Soviet Union – live to film highlights.

Music from iconic films including “It’s a Wonderful Life” with a score by Dimitri Tiomkin, “Man with a Movie Camera,” one of the earliest depictions of the cities of Ukraine on film, “The Gadfly” with music by Dimitri Shostakovich, “The Cranes are Flying,” and “The Snowstorm.”

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

The Music with a Movie Camera program spans the era and countries that the Wende Museum illuminates through its exhibitions. The program includes the ground-breaking 1929 documentary “Man with a Movie Camera,” with some of the earliest depictions of Kiev and Odessa on film to a soundtrack by Kiev native composer Reinhold Glière. This film is often cited as the best documentary in history.

There will be a rare screening of a small surviving section of the 1918 documentary “Auction of Souls,” by female filmmaker and survivor of the Armenian Genocide Arshaluys Mardiganian, depicting her experiences with music by Armenian composer Komitas. The program also includes a 1975 film from Ukrainian director Emil Loteanu featuring Roma performers from the Romen Theatre, the oldest and most famous Romani theater in the world, performing Romani songs and dances.

There are a number of Jewish composers from the region featured in the program including Dimitri Tiomkin with highlights from his score to “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Escaping after the Russian Revolution, Jewish American composer Tiomkin settled in Hollywood and went on to win 22 Oscars. The program includes a number of Jewish composers and directors from eastern europe including Dziga Vertov, Moishe Weinberg, and Konstantin Bromberg.

This film and music event celebrates the cultural breadth, and depth of film music from this unique period in history.

ABOUT HELIX COLLECTIVE

Helix Collective are classical musicians busting out of the traditional mold. From crossover dance music, to storytelling, to film, television, and video game music, the Los Angeles-based ensemble takes the best of classical chamber music and makes it the life of the party. Variety Magazine praised Helix Collective’s musical range moving from “moody urgency and edgy chamber-music sound” to the “sweetly romantic evoking wide-open spaces.” Helix “has a little something for everyone: those who like their classics straight up, with a contemporary edge to it, or with populist appeal.” Called “dizzyingly virtuosic with exquisite musicianship and world-class range” by The Free Times and praised for “beyond-the-ordinary programming.” Like the double helix, the ensemble is rearrangeable, flexible, and fuses the DNA of classical music into worlds where it’s never gone before. www.helixcollective.org

This performance is made possible in part by the City of Culver City and its Cultural Affairs Commission, with support from Sony Pictures Entertainment and by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture through the OGP grant program. Thank you to Helix Collective’s 2024 Season Sponsors, BMI and Spectra Creative Agency!