Musicians

The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra is a quintet based in Louisville, Colorado. Mont Alto has created scores for 80 silent films since 1994, reviving not only the sound, but also the scoring techniques of the original silent movie theater orchestras. Mont Alto selects music for each scene from their large library of “photoplay music.” Each piece heard in their scores comes from surviving collections of this now-forgotten musical genre.

 Clarinet: Brian Collins

 Violin: Britt Swenson

 Piano: Rodney Sauer

 Trumpet: Dawn Kramer

 Cello: David Short

More information about the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra can be found at www.mont-alto.com

Joanna Seaton

Called a “silvery soprano” by the New York Times, Joanna Seaton has played leading roles Off-Broadway, and in regional and stock theatres around the USA. With her husband Donald Sosin, she writes and performs music and songs for silent films at festivals, museums and colleges in New York, Seattle, Houston, Virginia, San Francisco, Boston, Wisconsin, Washington DC, and the two major Italian retrospectives in Bologna and Pordenone. They also recorded “Sail Away,” a CD of uplifting Broadway love songs. Joanna specializes in singing material from the early 20th century, and with Donald has recorded original and period music for several DVDs of silent films on the Criterion and Milestone labels. The couple teaches workshops in songwriting and silent film music. They have two children.

Donald Sosin

An acclaimed silent film composer/keyboardist for 40 years, Donald Sosin regularly performs at MoMA, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, and festivals, archives and universities all over the US and Europe. Native New Yorkers, Joanna Seaton and Donald Sosin have lived in rural Connecticut for two decades, teaching young musicians voice and piano, conducting musicals, and leading workshops in silent film music and songwriting. His dozens of scores for silents on DVD appear on the Criterion, Milestone, Kino and Image Entertainment labels.

Donald Sosin and Joanna Seaton will be teaching the Music Master Classes for CAM music students for the 2nd annual DSFF. More information about Donald Sosin and Joanna Seaton can be found at www.silent-film-music.com.

Hank Troy

Pianist Hank Troy began playing for silent movies in 1971 at the Denver Folklore Center. Since then he has accompanied over 1,000 films.

For four years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Hank was the resident accompanist at the Denver Center Cinema. In 1985, he became the pianist for the silent film series at Colorado Chautauqua in Boulder. The series continues as a summer-long event, drawing nightly audiences of 300-500.  Hank has performed for festivals in Denver, Breckenridge, Santa Fe, Telluride, and Aspen. Other regional venues include the Rialto Theatre in Loveland, The Denver Art Museum, and the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. He was pianist for two seasons of “Golden Silents”, a film-to-video project produced by KBDI Channel 12 and distributed to PBS stations nationally. His accompaniments have also been used in several television commercials.

Hank plays an improvisational style, drawing on the 19^th century Romantic tradition of classical music and from popular American tunes from the early 20^th Century. Audiences enjoy a unique concert performance when they view a film accompanied by Hank Troy.

FOR BOOKING INFORMATION: Contact Hank Troy at (303) 703-3550