The ALLOY ORCHESTRA is a three man musical ensemble, writing and performing live accompaniment to classic silent films. Working with an outrageous assemblage of peculiar objects, they thrash and grind soulful music from unlikely sources.

The ALLOY ORCHESTRA will be performing in Lincoln on Tuesday, March 22 and Wednesday, March 23.

On Tuesday, they will provide musical accompaniment for Buster Keaton's classic comedy THE GENERAL in the Great Plains Room in the Nebraska East Union. (Sponsored by the Lied Center. For tickets and more information go to The Lied Center.)

On Wednesday, the ALLOY ORCHESTRA will accompany Nebraska's own great comedy film star Harold Lloyd's SPEEDY at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center at 7:30 p.m.

Performing at prestigious film festivals and cultural centers in the US and abroad (The Telluride Film Festival, The Louvre, Lincoln Center, etc.), Alloy has emerged as possibly the best and best known silent film accompanists in the world.

An unusual combination of found percussion and state-of-the-art electronics gives the Orchestra the ability to create any sound imaginable. Utilizing their famous "rack of junk" and electronic synthesizers, the group generates beautiful music in a spectacular variety of styles. They can conjure up an entire symphony or a simple German bar band of the 20's. The group can make the audience think it is being contacted by radio signals from Mars or swept up in the Russian Revolution.

While their unusual instrumentation attracts attention, it is their unique sensitivity to the films themselves that makes Alloy performances so emotionally satisfying.

Now in their 12th year, Alloy began their aural onslaught with their original score for Metropolis in 1991. For the each of the last 9 years, the group has composed a new score and premiered it at the prestigious Telluride Film Festival.

Alloy collaborates with archives and collectors such as the Film Preservation Associates, The Rohauer Collection, and George Eastman House, to present extraordinarily beautiful prints of some of century's greatest films.

This multimedia experience lends silent films the power and excitement that hasn't been seen since the arrival of talkies.
In addition to their work with silents, the Orchestra has contributed soundtracks to commercial videos for IBM, UPS, The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the National Park Service and other projects. Their work has been featured in contemporary films and videos by directors Errol Morris (Fast, Cheap and Out of Control), Jane Gillooly (Dragonflies, the Baby Cries), Ben Meade (Vakvagny) and others.

THE FILMS: To date, the Orchestra has scored the music for 15 feature length silent films and numerous shorts that they perform in repertory at museums, festivals and movie theaters. This fall, 2002 Alloy will tour with their new score for Douglas Fairbanks' color masterpiece, The Black Pirate. The Orchestra has composed scores for: The Black Pirate (U.S. 1926), The Lost World (U.S. 1925), Manslaughter (U.S. 1922), Metropolis (German, l926), The Wind (American, l927), Nosferatu (German, l922), A Trip to the Moon (1904, France), Lonesome (U.S. 1928-9). A Man With a Movie Camera (USSR 1929), The Unknown (US, 1927), Steamboat Bill Jr. (US, 1927), Strike (USSR, 1924). South (England, 1919), and others.

THE GENERAL (1926, USA, 79 minutes). Directed by Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman. Alloy's newest score (and we think perhaps our best) highlights the drama of this Civil War tale. How can anyone deny that this is one of the greatest films of the silent era. Alloy has commissioned a stunning new 35mm print, derived from the original camera negative in the Rohauer Collection.

SPEEDY (1928, USA, 85 minutes). Directed by Harold Lloyd. Alloy premiered their newest score for Harold Lloyd's Speedy at the Telluride Film Festival this September, 2001. Speedy is Lloyd's last silent film and certainly one of his best. See why Lloyd was more popular than even Chaplain and Keaton at the end of the silent era. This fast paced dramatic comedy, shot in the streets of New York, explores the theme of modernization, pitting the last horse drawn trolley in the city, against the evil forces of the transit monopoly.

Click here to visit the Alloy Orchestra website