Final Offering of TAMIU’s Cervantes & Shakespeare Goes Pop Festival: Silent Film ‘Othello’ Saturday

The closing event of Texas A&M International University’s (TAMIU) month-long “Cervantes & Shakespeare Go Pop! Festival will showcase a spontaneous music expression paired with a silent film adaptation of Shakespeare’s immortal “Othello.”

TAMIU’s University Organist, Dr. Colin Campbell, will create a spontaneous composition on the Sharkey Corrigan Organ inspired by the film and Shakespeare play Saturday, April 28 at 3 p.m.in the TAMIU Center for the Fine and Performing Arts Recital Hall.

Admission is open to all and free of charge.

Dr. Campbell  said that the act of on-the-spot creation of a soundtrack  for the film is a challenge, but gives him great satisfaction.

“I prepare by watching the movie a number of times without any music, up to three or four times. Many of the silent films have music soundtracks added later when the technology became available to record sound together with film. I do not reference these, as I want my interpretation to be a new and a unique experience.

“In terms of the improvisation itself, I don’t prepare any of the music before the actual performance. I often develop themes for characters or recurring objects or places, but I don’t write these down. What the audience hears is actually being created on the spot as they hear it. It’s a challenge, and the music is always different…but immensely satisfying,” Dr. Campbell explained.

The film, released in 1922, was directed by Dimitri Buchowetzki, a Russian film director, screenwriter and actor who worked with Greta Garbo.   In this film, military ensign Iago (Werner Krauss) chafes upon learning that Gen. Othello (Emil Jannings) has appointed a younger man, Cassio (Theodor Loos), as his lieutenant. He is further offended to discover that Othello, a Moor, has secretly married Desdemona (Ica von Lenkeffy), the daughter of a senator,  and Iago plots revenge. Playing upon Othello's volatile nature, Iago plants clues that Desdemona has been unfaithful with Cassio.

A dedicated “Cervantes & Shakespeare Go Pop Festival” website with a full calendar and more is located at http://www.tamiu.edu/newsinfo/cervantes-shakespeare-go-pop/

Campbell, originally from South Africa, has performed other popular silent movie accompaniments since joining the University in 2013.  Those performances have included “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Faust,”  and “Nosferatu” and “Birth of a Nation.”

For additional information, contact the TAMIU Office of Public Relations, Marketing and Information Services at 956.326.2180, email prmis@tamiu.edu or visit offices in the Sue and Radcliffe Killam Library, 268. 

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