Music
The Wizard of Oz (1925) with live piano score by Stephen Horne
Standard: £15
In this radically different adaptation of L.Frank Baum’s novel, Dorothy, heir to the Oz throne, must take it back from the wicked Prime Minister Kruel with the help of three farmhands.
Stephen Horne
One of the leading silent film performers, Stephen Horne is a house musician at London’s BFI Southbank. Although principally a pianist, he often incorporates other instruments into his performances, sometimes simultaneously. He regularly plays internationally and in recent years his accompaniments, combining improvisation and composition, have met with acclaim at film festivals across Europe, North America and Asia.
In 2011 and 2012, Stephen was commissioned to compose ensemble scores for the London Film Festival Archive Galas of The First Born and The Manxman. In 2012 his accompaniment for Rotaie won the main prize at the Bonn Sommerkino Festival and he was subsequently invited to repeat the performance at that year’s Beethovenfest. For ten consecutive years, from 2014 to 2024, he has won in one or more categories in Silent London’s end-of-year poll.
During the lockdowns of 2020 – 2021, he was commissioned to record music for several online presentations of silent films, including for the SFSFF. He also released Silent Sirens, an album of solo piano pieces based on several of his silent film compositions. It was released by the classical music label Ulysses Arts and has performed well across the digital platforms.
In 2022, in collaboration with conductor-orchestrator Ben Palmer, Stephen completed two fully orchestrated scores for films that he had previous scored for small ensemble. Stella Dallas, commissioned by MoMA, was premiered at the Venice Film Festival and The Manxman formed the closing gala of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone.
