Music for Moving Pictures, by William Susman

Music for Moving Pictures

by William Susman

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Full Digital Discography

6

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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Music for Moving Pictures, Quiet Rhythms Live at Spectrum NYC, Scatter My Ashes, Quiet Rhythms Book I, Collision Point, and A Quiet Madness. , and , .

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1.	Research – No Money 03:25	info
2.	Hospital 02:57	info
3.	When Medicine Main Title – Premonition 02:36	info
4.	Hinkley – Kenny Woe 02:40	info
5.	The First Meeting – State Office 02:39	info
6.	Full Humanity – Hundreds of Hours – Capital Hill 03:04	info
7.	If I Could do Anything – Steve 02:22	info
8.	Make Themselves Heard – From Childhood 02:07	info
9.	Friends Newsletters – Hoffmans 03:07	info
10.	Tell Your Mother – Committed – Kenny Murder 02:26	info
11.	Wonder – Oliphant – Tony Future 02:31	info
12.	Balancing Acts Main Title – Pale 03:52	info
13.	Chagall’s Shtetl 02:56	info
14.	Theatre & Fireworks – Mikhoel’s Vodka 01:52	info
15.	Lear – Stalin 02:36	info
16.	Arrested – Luck – End Credits 02:53	info
17.	Native New Yorker 13:01	info

about

Folk and Acoustic Music Exchange hails Music for Moving Pictures as, "A flawless gem...superlative film scores of rare beauty and consummate aesthetic discretion...A effulgent gauzy beauty invades every aspect of this release."

And, The New Music Buff praises the album as "it stands alone on its own as a purely sonic experience."

Native New Yorker - WINNER Best Documentary Short - Tribeca Film Festival

Films during the Silent Era were called moving pictures. Live performance of the music helped provide a “narrative” and intensify the emotion. Setting the mood for these early films, a musician, often a pianist, performed live accompanying the projection of the film. In some of the larger picture houses an organist or orchestra played a score live-to- picture or improvised to pre-determined themes.

The three documentaries represented on this CD vary greatly in subject matter, yet have a connection through their usage, in varying degrees, of historical footage and vintage cameras dating back to the 1920s. When Medicine Got it Wrong blends historical film with contemporary imagery telling the story of parents who rocked psychiatry. Balancing Acts: A Jewish Theater in the Soviet Union relies entirely on archival footage from the first decades of the Soviet Union. Native New Yorker is a contemporary silent film shot before, during and after 9/11 with a hand-cranked 1924 Cine Kodak camera.

Although these films cover vastly different subjects, the music they feature plays a significant and vital role, helping to create and ultimately become part of the narrative.

Synopses of the films:

WHEN MEDICINE GOT IT WRONG

When Medicine Got it Wrong is the groundbreaking story of loving parents who rocked the halls of psychiatry, changing how we understand schizophrenia. In the 1970s, a small group of parents rebelled against then-popular psychiatric theories blaming schizophrenia on bad parenting. Their activism helped revolutionize treatment forever and their stories reveal the origins of the tragic state of mental health care today. This is a film by Katie Cadigan and Laura Murray.

BALANCING ACTS: A JEWISH THEATRE IN THE SOVIET UNION

Moscow, January 1948. In the bitter cold, a large crowd attends the State Funeral of the Yiddish actor and director Solomon Mikhoels. An official proclamation mourns the death of "a great People's Artist of the Soviet Union." What people are really mourning is the death of the most popular Jewish theater in the Soviet Union, and the man who kept it alive against all odds for over 20 years. No doubt many suspected the truth: he had just been assassinated by Stalin's secret police. This film by Sam Ball, Kate Stilley and William Susman tells the story of an exhilarating and ultimately tragic experiment in modern Jewish theater.

NATIVE NEW YORKER

This silent documentary with an original score was filmed through the eye of a 1924 hand-crank spring-wound Cine-Kodak camera. The film features Terry 'Coyote' Murphy representing the Native American influence on the isle of Manhattan.

Coyote, a Shaman Trail Scout, takes a journey which transcends time, weaving from Inwood Park (where the island was traded for beads and booze), down a long native path (now called 'the great white way', more commonly known as 'Broadway'), to the lower reaches of Manhattan into 'ground zero' (which is now a sacred burial ground for not just the American Indian and the slaves of yesteryear, but for the newest natives of this island empire as well).

Native New Yorker - shot before, during and after 9/11 - took several years of filming, with a running time of 13 minutes this is a film by Steve Bilich.

Originally released on May 20, 2009

credits

released February 7, 2024

MUSICIANS

Joan Jeanrenaud, cello (tracks 1 - 16)
Mira Stroika, accordion and vocals (tracks 12 - 16)
William Susman, piano and keyboards

PRODUCTION CREDITS

Produced by William Susman
Engineered, mixed and mastered by Stephen Hart
Recorded at Bay Area Sound Studios, San Rafael, CA
Sept. 2 & 3, 2008 (When Medicine); Sept. 26 & Oct. 12, 2008 (Balancing Acts); January 2005 (Native New Yorker).

All compositions © 2005-2008 by William Susman (ASCAP)
Published by Susman Music (ASCAP)

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about

William Susman San Francisco, California

William Susman is a composer and pianist.

His music has earned praise from Gramophone as “texturally shimmering and harmonically ravishing,” from Fanfare, "crystalline . . . and gloriously lyrical,” and The New York Times, “vivid, turbulent, and rich-textured.” Textura describes Susman as “not averse to letting his affection for Afro-Cuban, jazz, and other forms seep into his creative output.” ... more

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