Nanook
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On January 26, we hope you'll join us for a special performance of Nanook at
Reel Pizza, as scored and presented by the instrumental trio the Sumner
McKane Group. The group combines film, oral histories, and live music
to create live "docu-exhibits." In this performance, the 1922 silent
documentary film Nanook of the North will be brought to life
through the combination of film and a live score. Advance tickets will
soon be available. Contact the Abbe Museum for more information: 207.288.3519 or johannah -at- abbemuseum.org
The January 26th show will feature a
screening of the film, with a live performance of the musical
soundtrack, composed by the Sumner McKane Group.
The 80-minute film, Nanook of the North, follows an Inuit family, led by Nanook, through their travels and travails enduring an Arctic winter.
The January 26th show will feature a
screening of the film, with a live performance of the musical
soundtrack, composed by the Sumner McKane Group.
The 80-minute film, Nanook of the North, follows an Inuit family, led by Nanook, through their travels and travails enduring an Arctic winter.
The new score, an expansive and expressive original piece of music composed by the Sumner
McKane Group, was written meticulously in spring 2008 over a brief and
harried 4-week period. The undertaking was part of the Local
Score/Silent Film series, presented by One Longfellow Square in
Portland. Unlike other performers in the series, the group opted to
score the entire film, using no improvised musical elements at all. The
group's bravery in this endeavor was rewarded by two successful shows
with substantial local press coverage. Since then, the band has played
successful shows of Nanook at Slates in Hallowell, Space Gallery in
Portland, and the Boothbay Opera House, as well as releasing a 100-CD
limited-edition studio recording of Nanook, available online for a very
limited time.
The Sumner
McKane Group, a modern instrumental music trio, is based in Maine, with guitarist Sumner
McKane, bassist Josh Robbins, and drummer Todd the Rocket Richard
residing in Wiscasset, Whitefield, and Westbrook respectively.
A
national audience has already taken notice of this musical work.
National Public Radio's Echoes program, an ambient music show airing on
150+ terrestrial radio stations, featured a live recording of select
scenes from the score as part of a holiday special in December 2008.
Host John Diliberto has said of the music, "McKane's landscapes are
tinged in ambient atmospheres and pulled by an undertow of psychedelia
that makes them some of the most unassumingly mind-bending music of the
decade... Sumner manages to touch the nostalgic, wistful side of us, without being remotely quaint."
