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![\"MIKAELA](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4143342_web1_260415-Silent-film-organist-00139.jpg\")
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MIKAELA MACKENZIE \/ FREE PRESS<\/p>\n
Mycze Cutler, musical director at the Crescent Arts Centre, will be playing the organ
\nto accompany the moving images Saturday at the inaugural Winnipeg Silent Film Festival.<\/p>\n
Cutler, the church\u2019s music director, is used to improvising during services depending on the mood of the day\u2019s hymns and the content of the sermon. As an accompanist for upcoming run of The Pirates of Penzance (opening April 24) from the musical theatre program of the Manitoba Theatre for Young People, Cutler has a clear plan to follow.<\/p>\n
In the silent-film medium, Cutler combines both skill sets, drawing on thematic foundations and his emotional reflexes to enhance the storytelling on screen, however he sees fit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest challenge with any improvisation is to get it out of my brain. There\u2019s a very rapid translation to my fingers and toes to the rest of the world,\u201d says Cutler, who last year used the Casavant organ for an EDM concert.<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll review the films beforehand, but he knows that when the reels start spinning, \u201cvery little will come out the way I actually planned it.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s part of what caused festival co-organizer Grant Simpson to fall in love with the artistry of silent film accompaniment nearly 50 years ago.<\/p>\n
In 1979, the Nanaimo, B.C.-raised pianist moved to Dawson City, Yukon, for a nighttime gig playing at Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling Hall. During the day, Simpson had nothing to do, so he wandered into the city\u2019s museum, where he heard the sound of a Beckstein grand.<\/p>\n
In an auditorium, the museum was running silent film reels with live accompaniment by a man named Fred Bass.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was pretty ancient, but he was masterful,\u201d recalls Simpson, who moved to Winnipeg in 2018 after more than 40 years at the helm of the Frantic Follies Vaudeville Revue in Whitehorse.<\/p>\n
To organize the festival, Simpson has partnered with local violinist Miriam Neuman. The duo, who play a monthly silent film series at Crescent Fort Rouge and Gordon King United, will open the festival on Saturday at 2 p.m., improvising the music for The Electric House, another Keaton vehicle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most common comment I get from audience members after we play a movie is, \u2018After a while, I forgot it was you playing, because I was so involved in the movie,\u2019\u201d says Neuman.<\/p>\n
\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s deeply satisfying to hear people laughing or gasping at all the right spots.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other accompanists who will play the inaugural festival include Konko, a quartet featuring Kelly Castle, Matt Allen, Garethe Wesley and Jaxon Haldane. They\u2019ll play along with Un Chien Andalou, a legendary surrealist collaboration between Luis Bu\u00f1uel and Salvador Dali, and The Cameraman\u2019s Revenge, a Russian stop-motion film from 1912 starring beetles and grasshoppers in an unexpected love triangle.<\/p>\n
Annie Avery, a pianist from Yukon, will accompany the footage from Keaton\u2019s The Goat and Falling Leaves by Alice Guy-Blach\u00e9, a French filmmaker who is considered the first woman to direct. Local bluegrass artist Tim Osmond will give the juice to a montage of Abbott and Costello chase scenes.<\/p>\n
The festival will run from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., with admission by donation at the door.<\/p>\n
winnipegfreepress.com\/benwaldman<\/p>\n
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Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow the Free Press to deepen our reporting on theatre, dance, music and galleries while also ensuring the broadest possible audience can access our arts journalism.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t Ben Waldman Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University\u2019s (now Toronto Metropolitan University\u2019s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben<\/a>.<\/p>\n Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2014 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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