Special Projects

New Original Film Score:
Ernst Lubitsch's
The Oyster Princess

The Oyster Princess is a tale of vanity, excess, extravagant wealth, and mistaken identity. Our newest silent film score project was selected by the SXSW Film Festival. We will debut our original score to The Oyster Princess at the 2012 festival. Check back here for updates, previews, and more information.

Live Original Score for Buster Keaton's The Cameraman

This clip features live audio from the November 2010 debut of our live original soundtrack for Buster Keaton's The Cameraman. We have also performed this score at the 2011 SXSW Film Festival and at Discovery Green in Houston as part of Houston Public Radio's Silent Film Concert Series. The day of that concert, we appeared on The Front Row to play selections from the score and discuss how the project came together. You can listen to that broadcast here.

Pictures at an Exhibition

Hear a demo recording!

Pictures at an Exhibition was written by Modest Mussorgsky (Night on Bald Mountain) for solo piano in 1874. Pictures has been orchestrated and interpreted by other composers (most notably Ravel) and even a couple of bands (Emerson Lake and Palmer, Mekong Delta). So it's time we put our signature on one of classical music's most beloved, recognized, and walked-around-a-museum-to pieces!

In order to super-size this project, we have teamed up with The Invincible Czars to create a double band (a.k.a., "The Dorkestra"). That makes for an 11-piece art rock band complete with horns, strings, guitars, drums, and percussion.
 
Sarah Norris divided the arranging duties with Josh Robbins of the Czars. The combined band began recording demos of the arrangements at the Czar practice house in July. Listen to a (very) rough pass through "Tuileries" as arranged by Josh here.

Roadtrip Nation

Three of our songs are in the new season of the PBS series Roadtrip Nation. The show features young people who drive around in a green RV and learn about possible directions in life by interviewing interesting people. The idea is to "encourage people to engage in self-construction and actively participate in defining their futures by hitting the road and hearing stories from leaders who have resisted the noise of conformity and stayed true to themselves." We'll do our part to battle that "noise of conformity." Our music also appeared in Episode 1 and Episode 4 of season 7.