Historic Northampton

Programs & Events

Fast Forward Film Series

Film Scoring for a New Generation
Sunday, May 10, 2015 at 3 pm
Rahul Roy and Erik Lawrence
Rahul Roy and Erik Lawrence
Film scoring students from the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School will show and discuss their work..
In the fourth and final event of the spring Fast Forward Film Series, film scoring students from Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School, including Dylan Baker and Jonah Dratfield, will show and discuss their work, along with teacher/mentor Rahul Roy and special guest musician, Erik Lawrence. This event will include video clips with recorded scores and live music performance of an excerpted original film score. The films range from live-action dystopic science fiction to youth drama/dark comedy to moody surrealism to an ethereal animated-silhouette cross-cultural fairytale adaptation. Live musical performance will feature guitar and tenor saxophone.
Composer and guitarist Rahul Roy was born in London, England. His grandmother, mother and father were also musicians, and encouraged him to follow his passion. He has been involved in the exploration of improvised music in many genres. Growing up in England and later, his native India, his early influences included Jimi Hendrix, Ravi Shankar, and later, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. A meeting with John McLaughlin in the mid-seventies resulted in a more focused approach to writing and playing. Over the years, he has been fortunate enough to meet and on occasion collaborate with some of the giants of contemporary music including Ingrid Jensen, Ralph Towner, and Allan Holdsworth. He is on the faculty at Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School working on developing musical possibilities with the amazing young minds and hearts he has encountered there.
Erik Lawrence began playing saxophone at five years old under the guidance of his father, the late jazz musician Arnie Lawrence (founder of the New School of Jazz in NYC and the International Center for Creative Music Studies in Jerusalem), thus beginning a lifelong spiritual quest through music. He has brought his original melodic and rhythmic approach across Europe, the United States, South America, and the Caribbean. Erik leads and plays with various ensembles including the legendary Levon Helm's Band, where he has shared the stage with Elvis Costello, Allen Toussaint, Jack DeJohnette, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Cheryl Crow, John Hiatt, Emmylou Harris, Rickie Lee Jones, Nick Lowe, Gillian Welch, Warren Haynes, Phil Lesh, Bruce Hornsby, Phoebe Snow, and many others. He is also proudly an original member of Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra.
Fast Forward Film Series Spring 2015
The spring 2015 film series is curated by Anne Ciecko, Associate Professor of international cinema in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
The film screenings are free and open to the public and take place in Historic Northampton's program space at 46 Bridge Street