Organ Cinema

Contributors

Program

Drone! Beep! Quaak!

Students improvise to silent films with everything the organ has to offer

The organ always finds the right tone. It booms, roars and purrs, it trumpets, wobbles and flutes, and with the right setting it even squeaks and quacks. No matter what images are flickering across the screen - whether it's a heartbreakingly romantic love scene, a dramatic villain's duel or a slapstick interlude with a rolling beer keg: the organ provides the right sound.

At the organ cinema, students from the university's organ improvisation courses improvise to silent films from the 1910s to 1930s. The films, which are between two and 20 minutes long, include slapstick films à la Charlie Chaplin as well as longer comedies and serious films such as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". Through their varied and artistic performances, the students guide, accompany and dramatize old films, bringing them to new life. For the audience, who either marvel or laugh depending on the scene, these are unique evenings - because the improvisations are only performed once in this form.

What do you play when a ghost appears in a movie?

The Organ Cinema has been held once a year at the College of Music Freiburg since 2023. It is organized by Prof. David Franke and the students in his improvisation classes. The preparation is great fun, but also very time-consuming, he says: "The students look at the films carefully beforehand and think about what kind of music is suitable and what sounds they can use for certain scenes. What do you play when a gorilla jumps out of a tree, a woman shrieks or a ghost appears in a movie? "In the early days of cinema, there were pure cinema organs that had preset sounds such as kettledrums, ringing telephones or ship sirens. Of course, we don't have that with our organ in the concert hall," explains David Franke. However, special sounds are still possible: the students experimented with half-pulled stops or special keystrokes to elicit crazy and original sounds from the organ pipes.

Every movie night is a unique concert

Good timing is essential during the movie. Many tones or noises have to be played exactly to the second so that they match the movie scene. "We aim to turn every movie night into a unique concert experience, adding a completely new artistic level to the film. Organ cinema also attracts audiences who might otherwise not or rarely attend a classical organ concert," says David Franke.