The Golem: Silent Film with Live Musical Accompaniment

A screening of the powerful 1920 silent film classic, ‘The Golem’, accompanied by a brand new musical score from Robin Harris on piano (with a few brass instrumental surprises).

The film brings to life the Golem, one of the most haunting figures from Jewish lore, dating back to16th Prague. A Rabbi in the ghetto creates a figure from clay and brings it to life to protect the Jewish community from the mounting threat outside its walls. A tale of prophecy, lust and monsters –not to be missed.

Robin Harris hails from Yorkshire, via London’s East End, multiple glorious music halls and gypsy camps of Europe, and The Guildhall School of Music. He was She’koyokh’s trombonist for several years, former Punchdrunk musical director. He now leads a panoply of diverse music making projects including The Yiddish Twist Orchestra, Les Effrontés and the London Dixieland Orchestra. Der Golem is his 4th silent film score, following 2009’s Benya Krik, 2010’s Buster Keaton medley and 2011’s Wheels Of Chance, all of them Barbican commissions that toured widely.

Laura Anstee is a prize-winning cellist from the Royal Academy of Music. She went through the usual channels of orchestras and chamber music, playing with the Philarmonias New London Soloists as well as Kanye West, Jay-Z and Beyoncé. She has made a new career in world music specializing in Klezmer and gypsy music with the groups She'Koyokh and Kosmos while also developing a role in these groups for the Lyra – an ancient and unique Cretan bowed instrument.

Sponsored by JMI and the Goethe Institute.