BAND members put on a jubilant showcase at Maydale Reserve's Cattle Shed for their original scoring for the 1930 silent film Zemlya.
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Performed as part of the Art Is... festival, attendees were treated to an intimate screening of the film, with an accompanying score led by conductor Nicholas Shirrefs.
Lauded as one of the greatest films ever made, Alexander Dovzhenko's Zemlya is a Soviet-era Ukrainian film that tells the story of early farm collectivization.
Mr Shirrefs said he produced an original score for the film over three months, after being approached by Art Is... organiser Alistair Shaw about creating a production of the film.
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"I had thought about it for a while and I dangled the idea of scrapping the original soundtrack in lieu of writing a new one, it would take less time," he said.
"I went to Queensland in January, came back and started work on the project a bit before the school went back and every weekend I had available I dedicated to it.
"Some Sundays I would sit down for six hours and I might get three minutes of stuff done and then other days I would sit down for an hour and get 20 minutes done."
Mr Shirrefs' original score follows along with the film's triumphant highs and deep lows, reaching an inspiring climax in the final act of the film, in which the village folk take victory over the film's landowner antagonists.
Trained in composition, Mr Shirrefs said he aimed to punctuate and bring the film's pictures to life - and purposely avoided previous scorings of the film as to maintain his vision of what the soundtrack should be.
"In silent films, there is nothing to hear but the music, so the music has to tell a hell of a story," he said.
"There are a couple of what I would lovingly refer to as mental breakdowns there at the end of the movie, which is surprisingly easy to put to music.
"There is a thing called chromaticism in music, and if you use chromaticism the right way it is just someone going crazy.
"There are other bits that were quite tricky. Once I got the first section done, it was like breaking the walls of the dam. But the first section was hard."
The band performing the score consisted of members from the Horsham Rural City Band, as well as Horsham College year nine students who provided the film's booming percussion.
Louis Willemsen was one of the four students providing percussion on the night and said he was "honoured" to participate in the event.
Since moving to Horsham three years ago Louis has focused on his musical passion, and said it was the first time he had played for an audience of adults.
"It has been great. It has been amazing. Personally, I am honoured to be a part of it," he said.
"It took a while. We had about six rehearsals. It was about one rehearsal a week. Even then it was not perfect. We came into it not being really down and finished with it, so that made it a bit more stressful.
"But on the first night, it just all clicked."
Mr Shirrefs, who teaches the students, was impressed with their performance.
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"They all want to play the drums and I actively steered them away from that and said we are going to learn some stuff here.
"I am going to open you up to some stuff here that isn't drum kit, but it is effective, it works, it makes a difference.
"When it was done well, and they did a pretty good job, it is really effective."
Screenings of Zemlya will return to the Cattle Shed on June 30 and July 1.
Tickets cost $20 and can be purchased at https://www.artiswimmera.com/festivalprogram.
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