ICE meets Horror
On March 14, more than 100 people in the Maureen Forrester Recital Hall were scared and delighted as they watched Laurier’s Improvisation Concert Ensemble (ICE) provide a live, improvised soundtrack to the classic horror film Nosferatu, the oldest-surviving vampire movie.
The silent film was released in Germany in 1922 with Hans Erdmann having composed a score to be performed live when it was shown. Most of that score is now lost leaving composers and improvisers the delicious task of creating their own soundtracks to the ghoulish film.
ICE, under the current direction of Dr. Glenn Buhr and Kathryn Ladano, has paired music and theatrical event, previously. As well, traditionally, ICE has presented an unconventional large scale performance to wrap up the academic year, in 2011 presenting an improvised opera inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Laurier is home to celebrated ensembles such as the WLU Symphony Orchestra and the Maureen Forrester Singers; ICE is lesser-known, perhaps, but arguably, one of the most unique. This academic year, the ensemble featured piano, voice, electronics, and bass clarinet in its mix, and teamed with the University of Guelph’s Contemporary Music Ensemble (CME), directed by Joe Sorbara, to present two concerts of freely improvised music.
“Students coming out of the music program, who have been involved in ICE, are more competent than they would be otherwise,” Ladano says. “The skills they will have learned through improvisation will be applicable to everything they do musically.”
The event was sponsored by Wilfrid Laurier University’s Faculty of Music, Office of the Dean of Arts, and the Department of English and Film Studies.
The silent film was released in Germany in 1922 with Hans Erdmann having composed a score to be performed live when it was shown. Most of that score is now lost leaving composers and improvisers the delicious task of creating their own soundtracks to the ghoulish film.
ICE, under the current direction of Dr. Glenn Buhr and Kathryn Ladano, has paired music and theatrical event, previously. As well, traditionally, ICE has presented an unconventional large scale performance to wrap up the academic year, in 2011 presenting an improvised opera inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Laurier is home to celebrated ensembles such as the WLU Symphony Orchestra and the Maureen Forrester Singers; ICE is lesser-known, perhaps, but arguably, one of the most unique. This academic year, the ensemble featured piano, voice, electronics, and bass clarinet in its mix, and teamed with the University of Guelph’s Contemporary Music Ensemble (CME), directed by Joe Sorbara, to present two concerts of freely improvised music.
“Students coming out of the music program, who have been involved in ICE, are more competent than they would be otherwise,” Ladano says. “The skills they will have learned through improvisation will be applicable to everything they do musically.”
The event was sponsored by Wilfrid Laurier University’s Faculty of Music, Office of the Dean of Arts, and the Department of English and Film Studies.
