Sonic Silents, a new festival curated by composer Mark Orton, brings four nights of newly commissioned scores for silent film to the Hollywood Theatre stage, September 17 – 20, with every score performed live by the musicians who wrote it.
When the Hollywood Theatre opened on July 17, 1926, it was a 1,500-seat silent movie palace with an eight-piece orchestra and an organist in the pit.
Sonic Silents is planned as an annual festival, with the 2026 edition establishing its commissioning model: new scores each year, from outstanding composers whose work resists a single category. The inaugural season pairs rare and canonical silent films with music written expressly for this festival, and closes with a centennial presentation of Buster Keaton’s The General, released in 1926 and filmed in Cottage Grove, Oregon. Two landmark anniversaries share the stage in this special performance.
Get more info and tickets here.
