Through the years I have also started using my voice alongside silent films.
Before sound and image could be recorded together there was ‘the silent movie’. Images and story were told in a different, slower and more intense way, music and sound were created live, on stage.
A rich tradition was born and thousands of silent movies were made. Famous slapstick, city syphonies, dramas… They were accompanied by jazz bands, a whole orchestra, a singer, a story teller and very often by …. a solo pianist.
Elsewhere in Belgium I’ve played at Flagey Studio5 Brussels, De Cinema Antwerp, Cinema ZED Leuven, KASK Cinema Ghent, KAAP Ostend, Het Bos Antwerp, CC De Ververij Ronse and in other Cultural Centres.
In Leuven, Cinema ZED, I worked together with the Japanese benshi Ichiro Kataoka in 2016.
Through the years I have accompanied more than 500 different silent movies.
On several editions of the ‘Zomerfilmcollege’ I have accompanied the films there since 2009.
During the second and third edition of the silent movie festival “Il Cinema Repubblica” (2018 & 2019) during the ‘Gentse Feesten’ I accompanied a wide range of different films.
During the first, second and last edition of the silent movie festival SHHH in KAAP, Ostend (2019, 2020 & 2021) I accompanied several silent movies, solo, with piano, voice & guitar and voice & piano.
Abroad I have played in EYE in Amsterdam, in the ‘Cinemateket’ in Stockholm (2015) and at Kaunas International Filmfestival in Lithuania (2017).
© Copyright Hilde Nash
photos by The Imagerie & Jacinta Agten