Carl's live orchestra delivers soundtrack to silent classics

Carl Davis has written soundtracks to various silent films

Veteran movie maestro Carl Davis conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra in a live soundtrack to silent comedy films at Bedford Corn Exchange on Friday April 8.

Charlie Chaplin’s own music accompanies two main feature films in which Charlie strikes up a friendship with a stray dog that leads him into farcical antics (A Dog’s Life), while in Shoulder Arms, hapless Charlie is sent over the top whilst fighting in the First World War.

Conductor Carl Davis’s score to Kid Auto Races at Venice accompanies the first ever film appearance of Chaplin’s ‘little tramp’ character.

Carl Davis CBE was born in New York in 1936 and has lived in London since 1960. He soon found himself at the heart of England’s theatre, television, and film scene with scores for the National Theatre and The Royal Shakespeare Company, the television series The World at War and the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice.

Davis has been the driving force behind reinventing the silent movie for a new generation and he has written or reconstructed scores for some of the most famous Chaplin pre-talkies such The Kid, The Gold Rush and City Lights, which have been performed all over the world.

The show starts at 7.30pm. Standard tickets range from £14 to £35, plus booking fee.

Visit www.bedfordcornexchange.co.uk or call 01234 718112 to book or for more information.