MUSIC FOR FILM Andrew
MUSIC FOR FILM Andrew Downing’s Phantom of the Opera Evolution of a silent movie score DAVID PERLMAN CENTREDISCS Your instructions for how to find the venue “take the south laneway to the scarlet building with the double white doors” has a certain cachet for some. What can you say to encourage the less adventurous? The locale and neighbourhood play an important role in the musical presentation we offer. We hope that it credits a certain west-end profile, providing audiences with a sense of place: steps off Bloor Street, in a Bloorcourt laneway, in a century-old building. Our performances at The nanoSTAGE are ever warm, welcoming, and over before you know it — an hour of music that stays with you! In short, we like to think that there’s nothing quite like Piano Lunaire in Toronto. A dedicated solo piano series, in a fixed intimate salon, on a full moon cadence — presenting some of the most compelling new music being made in Canada today. (And we have a complimentary bar with fantastic libations from our sponsor, Big Head Wines.) And what should people expect (and not expect) Sept 25 and Oct 14-15? This Harvest Moon, Sept 25 and 26, Piano Lunaire opens the doors of its West End Toronto salon for an evening of extraordinary solo piano. Thirty seats. Under an hour. Some of the finest new music being written today, performed with the intimacy of a private gathering and the precision of a world-class concert. No fuss. Just the music, the room, and you. This September we highlight Daniel Pesca, who makes his nanoSTAGE debut. Daniel is a fine ambassador for everything we believe in at Piano Lunaire: he plays, writes and inhabits the challenges of a new musical path at the very highest level of achievement. Oct 14-15 is something quite different (i.e. a non-Moon event). We are celebrating the centenary of Harry Somers and his five piano sonata cycle Cinq a Sept at The nanoSTAGE on the 14th; then the full Toronto premiere of five new nanoSONATAS plus the five Somers HARRY SOMERS piano works / la musique pour piano Daniel Pesca sonatas on the 15th at Walter Hall and the 18th in Montreal. The pianists involved include David Potvin, Adam Sherkin, Gabrielle Gagnon-Picard, Bryn Blackwood and Stephanie Chua, and the composers are Keiko Devaux, Alison Yun-Fei Jiang, Lily Koslow, Adam Sherkin and Saman Shahi. This story picks up on a thread we explored in the spring with Hamilton-based Bach Elgar Choir’s presentation of Paul Wegener’s 1920 silent horror film Der Golem to a new score for choir and chamber ensemble by Charles Demuynck. This time it's an October 25 Amadeus Choir season-opening presentation of the American silent film adaptation of Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel, The Phantom of the Opera, starring Lon Chaney in the title role. We caught up with Andrew Downing, long distance from Riga, Latvia, via a series of emails, to ask about his score for the 1925 film. (Downing will be back at the beginning of September, in plenty of time for the Amadeus Choir’s October 25 seasonopening presentation of the film with Andrew Downing Kathleen Allan conducting.) It’s not a newly commissioned score, right? AD: Right, this commission was originally from the Vancouver Bach Choir around 2011 and VBC has performed it a few times now. The second time we performed it, Kathleen [Allan] was, as I recall, the Assistant Conductor of the VBC, with Les Dala leading that performance. David Perlman can be reached at publisher@thewholenote.com 14 | September 2026 thewholenote.com
OOFFFF CCEENNTREE MUSSICC SSALOONN And the choir? Vocalise or text? Text, they are singing words taken from the “intertitles” or “dialogue cards” from the silent film. What about the impact of the individual venues on the scoring? It was written a long time ago for a different venue [the Orpheum in Vancouver]. I’ve actually never been to the Eglinton Grand but I trust Kathleen’s choices. Les and Kathleen are such talented interpreters of music that IF they wanted to make any changes to the score to make it easier or better for the choir I would be all for it! The Phantom of the Opera (1925) But actually when we first performed it in Vancouver it was already an adaptation - of an instrumental-only score for the film, first performed at the Jackson Triggs Winery Amphitheatre in Ontario. In 2007 or 2008, as I recall. …. Actually cancel that. I just I checked the JTW amphitheatre archives, and it was 2003! Oh boy ... what a long time ago. The JTW amphitheatre was a gig not a commission, I assume? It was just a concert in which they wanted to show the film and have a band play along, but I took it on as a project to write some new music, so it wasn’t really a commission, but more of a situation ... And the band was …? David Jones - pump organ, Kathleen Kajioka - viola; Andrew Downing - double bass; Kevin Turcotte - trumpet; William Carn - trombone. Mostly improvisers - there was a lot of unscripted material in this iteration of the score. So what got it from the winery to the west coast? Les Dala heard about it, and wanted to do a silent film with the choir. Les and I were friends in University and he decided to take a chance! I used some of the original themes, but I had to basically rewrite the whole thing as a more scripted kind of piece. It’s stayed in the VBC repertoire I see, most recently in 2025. Did they fly you in from Riga? Unfortunately not! They had a very capable bass player who could play my part, and I was quite busy in Rīga at that time, so I had to sit this one out. And the instrumentation? The upcoming band is violin, double bass, trombone, trumpet, clarinet, bassoon, piano and organ - sort of a modified version of Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale. They are all soloists at one point or another, and they are all gifted improvisers so everyone gets their moment to shine. Sort of a “modified version of Soldier’s Tale”? That was my choice - I really love the colour possibilities in Soldier’s Tale (it has some strings, some brass, some winds) so I thought it would be a good “small band” to accompany the choir. The Orpheum wins hands down as a venue when it comes to chandeliers! And speaking of chandeliers, is there a moment you can point to in the film that epitomizes the challenge of composing this? Yes! There is a lengthy scene when a policeman and Christine’s love interest are searching for her in the Phantom’s Lair deep below the Paris Opera which is quite tense and harrowing, but a bit ‘funny’ by today’s standards of film. I tried to make the film dramatic and scary, but had to also view it through the lens of today and treat it as it appears, so I tried to inject a bit of humour where I could while maintaining the severity of the story. st 31 season To know the future. To see the past. La Voyante NOVEEEMMMMMBBEEERRR 15,,, 222222200022222226||| 333 PPPMMMMM (The Clairvoyant) FEEEBBRRRUAARRRYY 777,,, 22222220002222222777||| 333 PPPMMMMM 2026/2027 Inna Perkis & Boris Zarankin founders and artistic directors Tribute to Mnemosyne, Goddess of Memory 2222222,,, ||| 333 PPPMMMMM MMMMMAAYY 22222220002222222777 Mozart in 3D offcentremusic.com thewholenote.com September 2026 | 15
