"The Yellow Ticket"
Violinist-composer Alicia Svigals, pianist Marilyn Lerner, and UVA faculty member and clarinetist Joel Rubin will accompany a live screening of the 1918 Pola Negri silent film, “The Yellow Ticket” (dir. Victor Jansen and Eugen Illés) in collaboration with the Virginia Film Festival. The score, written by Svigals, was commissioned by the Foundation for Jewish Culture’s 2013 New Jewish Music Network and Svigals and Lerner regularly tour with this multi-media event. The performance features an expanded score including clarinet and bass clarinet.
Supported by the UVA McIntire Department of Music, UVA Jewish Studies Program, Congregation Beth Israel, the Office of the Vice Provost for the Arts, and the UVA Program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality
“I believe this accompaniment to The Yellow Ticket is one of the most powerful I have heard. ... The sound of piano, violin and the human voice evoke passion, energy and a profound sense of mourning, bridging the historical distance between us and this film as eloquently as does Pola Negri’s extraordinary face.”
Professor Tom Gunning, University of Chicago (Art History, Cinema and Media Studies)
“Svigals’ score is exquisite. In practically an hour of music ... blended somber klezmer themes with vivid, plaintive neoromantic melodies that echoed Tschaikovsky [sic] and Ravel.”
Lucid Culture: Jazz, Classical Music and the Arts in New York City
“Svigals’s nuanced violin variations and soaring melodies are matched in intensity by Lerner’s dynamic chords. Together, the two follow the film’s cuts through optimistic moments and scenes of despair.”
Chicago Maroon
