arts & entertainment
Piano Accompaniment By...
David Drazin lends his composing and playing talents to silent films.
Suzanne Chessler
Contributing Writer
T
he selection of a silent film,
The Artist, for this year's top
Academy Award probably
pleased pianist David Drazin more
than most movie fans.
A huge part of Drazin's career
involves providing live piano accompa-
niment for showings of historic silent
films that likely inspired production of
the Oscar winner.
The pianist, who is based in
Chicago and has traveled numerous
David Drazin: "Now that The Artist has won
times to perform at the Detroit Film
Best Picture, I think everyone should pay more
Theatre, returns Saturday, March 17,
attention to silent films."
to enhance melodically The Cabinet of
Dr. Caligari, made in 1919 Germany
from a screenplay by Jewish writers Hans
attention to silent films than ever before
Janowitz and Carl Meyer and directed by
and see the real items:' says Drazin, 55,
Robert Wiene, a Jew who left Berlin after
explaining his outlook during a recent
Hitler came to power, moving to Budapest, phone conversation from his home.
then London and finally Paris, where he
"For me, the photography is very inter-
died in 1938. Janowitz, who died in 1954
esting as it goes back to people and places
in New York, and Meyer, who died in 1944 aside from the stories. While actors are
in London, both became pacifists after
shown in the moment of portraying a
their experiences during World War I.
character, there's always the element of
The horror movie follows a carnival
their real world that's exciting.
sleepwalker (Conrad Veidt) who mur-
"With remarkable clarity, there are
ders at the direction of the demented Dr.
people who are far removed in time
Caligari (Werner Krauss), and its unravel- and space [from the present day]. While
ing explores the boundaries between san-
watching movies from the 1890s or early
ity and madness.
1900s, in which there are no telephones
"Now that The Artist has won Best
or cars, I can get the feeling of breathing
Picture, I think everyone should pay more
with the actors!'
Drazin says he never gets tired of
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an example
of German Expressionist cinema as
it represents internal psychological
states.
In it, writes film critic Roger Ebert,
"The actors inhabit a jagged landscape
of sharp angles and tilted walls and
windows, staircases climbing crazy
diagonals, trees with spiky leaves,
grass that looks like knives. These
radical distortions immediately set the
film apart from all earlier ones, which
were based on the camera's innate ten-
dency to record reality"
"It's like experiencing the arts
movement of that time firsthand," says
Drazin. "It can be a bit abstract!'
As Drazin plays for each film, for the
first or any subsequent time, he makes up
the music on the spot. He doesn't believe
that anybody knows what was played
to enhance silent films during original
screenings.
"A lot of what I play involves work-
ing improvs," explains Drazin, who has
been composing music since elementary
school. "It's never totally new because I'm
always myself, but I actually can't play the
same way twice.
"Developing music on the spot is my
favorite kind of work, and playing for the
length of movies is what's different. A
song tends to be three to five minutes, but
a movie can be 90 minutes.
"There needs to be a lot of variety. In
a sense, I'm reading the picture and con-
verting it into song!'
One extended performance experience
stands out for the pianist. It came after he
accompanied a Charlie Chaplin program
at a film festival in Italy, where Michael
Chaplin, son of the legendary actor, was in
the audience.
"Michael Chaplin invited my wife, Carol,
and me to the family home in Switzerland,
and it was very exciting to hang out with
Michael and his wife and play jazz on
Charlie's 'Diane the film musician says.
Drazin originally was introduced to a
variety of music by his mother, a piano
performer and teacher, and his father, a
guitarist and trumpet player. His mom
was his keyboard mentor until he turned
13 and began studying with a jazz musi-
cian.
While earning a bachelor's degree in
music from Ohio State University, focus-
ing on jazz, Drazin began playing for
silent films shown at the Cinevent festival,
a program to which he returns yearly.
After moving to Chicago in 1982, the
musician was hired as accompanist for
silent pictures at what has become the
Gene Siskel Film Center, which has show-
cased a limited number of Russian Jewish
silent films, such as Jewish Luck.
"There are a few scattered Jewish films
from the silent era, but Jewish characters
turn up in all kinds of movies:' explains
Drazin, who had his bar mitzvah service
at a Conservative synagogue.
in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest.
A recent joint effort in New York City,
"Two Voices, One Vision," was a concert
for the Abraham Fund, which promotes
projects that nurture coexistence and
equality among Israeli Jews and Arabs.
It was a perfect showcase for their blend
of various Middle-Eastern musical tra-
ditions and smooth jazz.
"Our concert consists of three sec-
tions," says Noa. "We each do a solo
part with our respective musicians
and our own original repertoire, and
then we come on together for a few joint
pieces:' she wrote. "These songs were
either written by Mira or [me] or by both
of us together. We also choose to cover
well-known songs, like "We Can Work
It Out," our first duet. Our joint material
invariably carries the strongest political/
humanistic message!'
Inevitably, one must ask how much
change a couple of singers can bring about
Peace Through Music
Musical collaboration hopes to inspire.
George Robinson
Special to the Jewish News
R
omain Rolland, a Nobel laureate
for literature, famously said, "We
must struggle with a pessimism
of the intellect and an optimism of the
will." The gifted Arab Israeli singer-actress
Mira Awad puts it a little differently.
"Like the title of Emil Habibi's play, I
would say I am an `optimist' [a combina-
tion of optimist and pessimist], meaning I
do see that the reality is very complicated,
and that for the time being we are light
years away from a solution. But I have to
keep some kind of a faith in some kind of
a better tomorrow; otherwise life would
really be unbearable," Awad wrote in an
52
March 15 . 2012
email interview.
Her friend and frequent musical com-
patriot, Achinoam Nini, better known
to audiences as Noa, gives a similarly
guarded answer.
"On the long term? Yes. Short term? It
looks like it will get worse before it gets
better," the popular Jewish Israeli singer
wrote. "But that's no reason not to work
tirelessly"
The women will appear together, billed
as "Noa, with special guest Mira Awad," at
the JCC's Stephen Gottlieb Music Festival
on Saturday, March 17, at the Berman
Center for the Performing Arts in West
Bloomfield.
Their musical partnership has born
considerable fruit, including Israel's entry
Israeli Arab singer Mira Awad and Israeli
superstar Noa team up at JCC's Gottlieb
Music Festival.