CelloBop musician and composer Gideon Freudmann accompanies "The Little General" on cello.
The perfect marriage of cinema and live music – Cinema to Sound – comes to The Myrna Loy screen and stage 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 6.
Viewers will “get to see Buster Keaton’s film, ‘The General,’ as it was made and see it in a theater – as it was meant to be seen,” says CelloBop musician and composer Gideon Freudmann, who will play a live accompaniment as the film rolls.
“That is part of the tradition of this film and films of that era,” he says.
“Part of the magic of these films is you get to see a film as it was with all the detail along with the spontaneity of a live performance.”
Freudmann will be playing his electric cello. He’s coined the term CelloBop for the exciting music and techno sounds he elicits from his instrument.
“An updated soundtrack breathes new life into the film and makes it feel more current,” he says of what draws him to doing this work.
So far, he’s composed and performs music for 13 silent film classics, varying from Hitchcock’s “Downhill” to “Phantom of the Opera” to “Nosferatu.”
Freudmann has had a love affair with the cello since he was 8 years old. His passion for composing and performing original film scores dates back decades when he was asked to play music for a Halloween screening of Lon Chaney’s “Phantom of the Opera.”
It proved a hit with the audience and musician alike.
The upcoming show is a unique “opportunity to see one of the all-time best films in a nice setting, and with music that suits it really well, is true to the spirit of the film and is also more modern,” says Freudmann.
“I think this movie just sweeps people away,” he adds. “Keaton did all his own stunts. He was involved in every detail. He also wrote it and directed it … had his hand in all the camera work and was also very improvisational.”
In 1989 the Library of Congress included “The General” in its first batch of films to be preserved in the National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”
Freudmann’s music performance will be thrilling as well. A Boston Globe reviewer wrote of one of his albums, “Gideon Freudmann has brought the cello to a new realm. His latest album is a dreamy, cinematic tour-de-force!”
Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for students (17 and under) and are available online, at the box office at 15 N. Ewing, or by calling 406-443-0287.