Music Scored for Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” Will Be Presented With Projected Film Scenes

The DePaul Wind Ensemble will present the world premiere of composer Thomas Miller’s new film score, “Suite for Metropolis,” during its Oct. 21 concert. Miller’s composition is inspired by Austrian director Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent movie classic, “Metropolis,” which takes a futuristic look at a society separated into thinkers and workers. The live performance will be synchronized with scenes from the film projected on a screen behind the musicians. The free, public program will begin at 8 p.m. in the DePaul Concert Hall, 800 W. Belden Ave. in Chicago.

Miller’s work is scored for 15 wind musicians, eight percussionists, an electric guitar player and bassist, with electronic sounds performed by Miller on various synthesizers and a Theremin, an electronic instrument.

A composer and 25-year veteran of the recording industry, Miller’s credits range from the Blues Brothers’ band to Placido Domingo. His interest in timbral transformation found a compatible technology in the 1980s with the development of the NED Synclavier, and he has used this music synthesizer to create sound designs for numerous commercials and CD projects. An avid creator and collector of sounds, Miller created the Universal Sound Library, a timbre library for the Synclavier that was marketed worldwide. A member of the DePaul faculty since 1990, Miller is the department chair of DePaul’s Sound Recording Technology Program (SRT) and an instructor of electro-acoustic music.

Miller’s musical score for “Metropolis” is tied to his work as a music professor. “To provide sound recording students experience in recording and performing music for film, every year I write and produce musical scores for movie scenes from classic movies,” Miller explained. “For the last seven years this has included music for scenes from the silent film masterpiece, ‘Metropolis.’ ‘Suite from Metropolis’ utilizes four of these scenes that are thematically linked by extensive use of leitmotivs to represent characters and emotions.”

The DePaul Wind Ensemble has evolved from a class in wind performance in 1979 to a highly competitive pool of 50 musicians—comprising both undergraduate and graduate students—from which the ensemble is drawn today.

The group plays approximately 12 concerts, both on and off campus, throughout the academic year. Although the Wind Ensemble performs music from all eras, its emphasis is on the performance of music written since the beginning of the 20th century. Several of these works have been recorded on the Albany Records label. Donald DeRoche, the Wind Ensemble’s founder and current director, is chair of the Performance Studies Department at DePaul.

Other offerings on this Oct. 21 concert program include “Dixtuor” by George Enescu and “Hyperprism” by Edgard Varese. Folk music often provided a creative catalyst for the compositions of the Romanian composer Enescu; his lyrical “Dixtuor,” penned in 1905, is scored for 10 woodwinds. Varese, at the radical center of new music in the early 20th century, was particularly fascinated with percussion and pioneered a new world of timbre, texture and dynamics. Like all of Varese’s compositions, “Hyperprism” is brief – the four-minute work calls for nine winds and 11 percussion instruments. DeRoche will conduct.

For more information, call the School of Music at 773/325-7260 or visit the school’s Web site: music.depaul.edu.