|
|
Who are these
clowns, anyway?
Carlos Garza and Rich O'Meara formed Silent Orchestra to transport early
cinema to a modern audience.
With a passion for experimentation and improvisation, they seamlessly fuse
contemporary and traditional idioms to create a new sound for silent films.
Silent Orchestra is expanding the art of pre-talkie films through their
spontaneous and dynamic live performances and and their state of the art synchronized recordings.

Carlos
Garza is
an award winning composer and keyboardist who has performed live
in the Washington area since 1979. He is a co-author of the
score for the feature film Thirteen directed by David Williams.
The film was awarded a jury prize at the International Forum
of New Cinema of the 48th Berlin International Film Festival.
It has been shown at international festivals in New York, Toronto,
Hong Kong, and Paris.
As a founding member
of The Young Professionals, he was an integral part of
the legendary new wave scene at the 9:30 Club in the early
1980's. In the late 80's he led the alternative pop group
Danse Of Guilt to critical acclaim and numerous songwriting
awards. He has also performed with Country music group, Tall Timber
and the Rhythm and Blues oriented Greg Gaines Group.
He has performed contemporary
jazz with the Bruce Middle Group and appears on the 1990
release Far and Beyond. He performed, recorded with
and co-wrote with Grammy award winning pop singer Margot Chapman
of the Starland Vocal Band. He performed original
compositions and improvisations at weekly shows by the comedy
troupe Gross National Product. His music has also
appeared on their PBS broadcasts.
He has judged the Mid-Atlantic
Song Contest and been a judge in an east coast state music
grant competition. As owner and operator of
Pepperland
Recording he has engineered releases for DVD, CD, video, vinyl and
cassette. As a producer, he has crafted many song
demos for aspiring pop, folk, and country songwriters. He
studied music theory at Frostburg State University and jazz piano
with Wade Beach and Burnett Thompson.
|
Rich
O'Meara is
fluent in a wide variety of musical styles. As a member of One
Earth Percussion Theatre, with Joseph McIntyre and Michael Wingo,
he took part in innovative multi-media performances. He has performed
with the Contemporary Music Forum, the Lenox Ensemble,
and the New York based Sky Music. He was featured as marimba
soloist with the Women Composers Orchestra and under the
direction of Michel Camilo, was a guest artist at the 1998 Latin-Caribbean
Festival at the Kennedy Center. With the new music ensemble
Amaranth, he premiered Puzzle Piece for three
marimbas.
He has composed many
works for percussion and small ensemble, some of which are published
by Music for Percussion and Marimba Productions.
His piece for solo marimba, Restless, was required
repertoire for the 48th International Competition in Geneva, Switzerland.
He took second place in the 1999 Percussive Arts Society Percussion
Composition Contest with looking at "r", for
two marimbas. His compositions can be heard on the Audite Schallplatten
and the Koch Discover International record labels.
He has also spent time
playing jazz on vibes, marimba, and MIDI percussion with the Bruce
Middle Group and Millennium; and alternative rock as
drummer for Kismet.
He has served as part
time music faculty at Goucher College and the Levine
School of Music. He studied percussion with Randy Eyles,
Gar Whaley, Ron Barnett, and Leigh Howard Stevens and received
a Bachelor of Music in percussion performance from Catholic University
in Washington, D.C.
|
|