STANDING ROOM ONLY!

Opening Night at Noe Music — a "double header" featuring Schubert's famous Trout Quintet followed by a screening of Buster Keaton's hilarious classic 1925 silent comedy Seven Chances, with live virtuosic musical accompaniment composed by Stephen Prutsman for piano, flute, violin, viola, cello and double bass. Featuring pianist/composer Stephen Prutsman, co-Artistic Director Owen Dalby and Lesley Robertson (St Lawrence String Quartet), Paul Wiancko (Kronos Quartet), Tony Manzo (New Century Chamber Orchestra), and Tara Helen O'Connor (Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center).

The Trout Quintet acquired its nickname from a popular song—one of Schubert's own, Die Forelle (The Trout)—which Schubert remixed into a set of variations. Easily one of the top-ten most popular works in chamber music history, the Trout is chock-full of great tunes and the lively, conversational give-and-take that makes chamber music so much fun to experience live.

Last heard at Noe Music in the complete violin & piano sonatas by Beethoven, San Francisco's own Stephen Prutsman is one of the world's great pianists, an acclaimed composer, and silent film buff. His through-composed accompaniments to silent films, especially classic comedies by the great Buster Keaton, have garnered rave reviews from around the world. We are lucky to have an all-star cast of musicians on hand (featuring Prutsman himself at the piano) to perform live to a big-screen projection of Seven Chances (1925), in which Buster Keaton plays struggling stockbroker Jimmie Shannon, who learns that, if he gets married by 7 p.m. on his 27th birthday — today — he'll inherit $7 million from an eccentric relative. But, after Mary Jones, whom he's mooned over for years, turns him down, he has only hours to find a woman who'll marry him. When his friends try to help by placing an ad in the afternoon newspaper, the shy Jimmie finds himself chased through the streets by hundreds of marriage-minded women.

Containing one of the greatest on-foot chase sequences in all of cinema, matched with insanely virtuosic feats for the musicians, this is a "marriage" of brilliant visual comedy and musical ingenuity for the ages.

Note the special start time of 7pm!

Popcorn and champagne served at intermission

Childcare not offered for this particular concert due to the later start time; certain editorial cuts have been made and SEVEN CHANCES is appropriate for ages 8+ (film is 45 mins)