DALLAS – Dallas Chamber Symphony on Feb. 16 will combine a new score by Jon Kull to a screening of "The Goat," a silent film starring the late Buster Keaton. Music will start at 8 p.m. with Richard McKay conducting the chamber ensemble’s performance of "Kammermusik No.1" by Paul Hindemith and "Chamber Symphony" composed by Paul Moravec.
"With this program, we're introducing new works to our audience — pieces that people are not likely to have heard before," says Richard McKay, artistic director and conductor. "Everything will be unfamiliar, yet fun and enjoyable, while allowing some of our finest players to shine as they perform these deep but worthy cuts from the chamber repertoire."
In 1921's "The Goat," Keaton is mistaken as the outlaw Dead Shot Dan, and hilarity ensues when the cops give chase. The new film score is Dallas Chamber Symphony's tenth commission to date.
Kull will attend the premiere. Kull has amassed more than 175 credits as an orchestrator, working with many of the top composers in Hollywood on some of their biggest projects.
German-born composer Hindemith’s "Kammermusik No. 1" was received with great enthusiasm at the 1922 Donaueschingen new-music festival. The work fuses the post-World War I influence of American jazz with German neo-classicism.
"Chamber Symphony" is a modern piece by Moravec, who won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Moravec has composed orchestral, chamber, choral, operatic and lyric pieces. His music has earned many distinctions, including the Rome Prize Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, three awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation.