A ciné-concert by William Kentridge & Philip Miller.
Films and film fragments for piano & two voices.

A long-term collaboration connects Johannesburg-born visual artist William Kentridge to his South African compatriot Philip Miller. Their artistic partnership dates back to Kentridge’s 1993 film Felix in Exile, part of his celebrated Soho Eckstein series for which Miller wrote the score. It was only natural therefore that one of their common projects should be part of the red bridge project.

Paper Music is a witty, poignant, song-and-film cycle uniting films, mostly animations based on William Kentridge’s charcoal and ink drawings, with live musical performances by vocalists Ann Masina and Joanna Dudley, pianist Vincenzo Pasquariello, and composer Philip Miller. It is a piece about the obvious relationship of music to film in the mimicking of emotion or energy and how a particular sound or piece of music makes you see something differently, and how an image or film makes you hear music differently.

A chase having fast music, a romance having the languid playing of a violin – this is an obvious connection of image and music in which the one simply reinforces the other. But there are ways in which music can act as the grammar, the syntax of the films – particularly with the animated films in which the narrative is fragmentary and fragmented. The music gives a sense of cause and effect: where a new section starts, what causes one event, how to read the narrative of the film. Paper Music is a fascinating exploration of the relationships between sound and image.

Video: William Kentridge
Music: Philip Miller

Voice: Ann Masina
Voice: Joanna Dudley
Piano: Vincenzo Pasquariello
Costume design: Greta Goiris
Technical Coordinator: Michele Greco

Paper Music is represented by Quaternaire / Sarah Ford

Produced by: THE OFFICE performing arts + film
Rachel Chanoff, Laurie Cearley, Olli Chanoff, Lynn Koek, Catherine DeGennaro, Gabrielle Davenport, Noah Bashevkin, Erica Zielinski, Diane Eber, Chloe Golding, Kyla Gardner & Bruna D’Avila
In partnership with: Quaternaire - Paris