Johnston, Phillip - The Adventures Of Prince Achmed
SKU
Asyn 206
Phillip Johnston: soprano saxophone
James Greening: trombone
Alister Spence: organ, keyboards
Casey Golden: organ, keyboards
Nic Cecire: drums
“Johnston’s soundtrack adds an extra dimension to the 2D-nature of the animation, with energetic jazz layered over the pre-recorded percussion track that builds up and flows through the film. While Johnston and Reineger’s compositions are each complex in their own ways, they come together simply and beautifully, stripping animation back to its abstract qualities of light, shadow, image and sound.” – Anna Madeleine, The Guardian
“This enchanting album contains the music that Phillip Johnston composed as a soundtrack for The Adventures of Prince Achmed, a 1926 silent silhouette animation that is a landmark in cinema history – the world’s first feature-length animated film. Created by female film pioneer Charlotte “Lotte” Reiniger, the animated film is based upon One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales often referred to as The Arabian Nights.
To breathe Reiniger’s silhouettes to life, Johnston composed a continuous score of 65 minutes of music to be performed live with the film. For this recording of The Adventures of Prince Achmed, the music is broken by the composer into twelve individual tracks.
Phillip Johnston has been composing and performing original scores for silent films for 25 years in both his native USA and current home in Australia. Johnston’s interest in silent film projects includes Wordless!, his multi-media collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic artist Art Spiegelman, which features silent films and animation, spoken word/ Spiegelman’s historical essays, and live music by Johnston and his ensemble The Silent Six. The film and music The Adventures of Prince Achmed have been performed across Australia, including the Sydney VIVID Festival, MONA FOMA and the Woodford Folk Festival, and Johnston is looking forward to touring the project overseas.”
- LabelAsychronous
- UPC752830272064