SLIDING AROUND THE WORLD

2010 was the 200th anniversary of Mexican Independence and the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution. To celebrate this fact I composed a live musical score to accompany the silent film ‘QUE VIVA MEXICO’ by the Russian director Sergei Eisenstein.

 We premiered the score at the Centro Sociale Angelo Mai in Rome with The Oktober Orchestra a group of sixteen musicians. 

This was so successful that we continued and have given several performances since and have decided to offer it as a festival project. The size of the orchestra will depend on the budget available.

 

The genesis of my live score was two compositions that I wrote and recorded in the early nineties for a compilation c.d. on the French NATO record  label which was dedicated to comic books published by Spirou Magazines and Les Edition Dupuis. The two pieces are titled Jerry Contro K.K.K. and Les Vengeurs Du Sonora.

My score for Que Viva Mexico is based on Les Vengeurs Du Sonora but also includes passages of free jazz improvisation, ambient exotica, Mexican pop and other original melodies.

The video above is extracts from the live performance and the rehearsal at Angelo Mai in Rome in 2011 featuring the Oktober Orkestra.

The size of the Oktober Orkestra depends on the budget available for a screening performance.

Below are my original ‘themes’ around which I composed the score for the Oktober Orkestra

 

 

 QUE VIVA MEXICO – by Sergei Eisenstein – 1925. 80 minutes

“Hollywood’s loss was Mexico’s gain, as this glorious documentary will attest. Having failed to realize several projects in Hollywood, Russian film pioneer Sergei Eisenstein trekked to Mexico with producer Grigory Alexandrov and cameraman Eduard Tisse, and the famous writer Upton Sinclair as beneficiary. Their budget quickly ran out, and the film was never properly completed, but Alexandrov carefully assembled this version of Que Viva Mexico! in 1979, and the result is one of the most beautiful documentaries ever made. Celebratory, socially alert, and at times even surreal, the film displays all of Eisenstein’s revolutionary techniques while proving that his narrative style could have flourished in Hollywood. Instead, this marvelous film stands as a testament to what might have been. Many film-historians are convinced that ¡Que viva México! is one of Eisenstein’s greatest films. ¡Que viva México! stood at the crossroads of Eisenstein’s artistic development and at a crucial point in the evolution of the art of the cinema. Conceived as a gigantic tableau of Mexican life, the film is a startling portrayal of the dramatic interaction between the ancient Mayan civilisation and the Spanish conquistadores and the modernising mythology of the Mexican Revolution.” Wikipedia.