Symphony Organist Plays Different Roles at Concerts

Theatre organist Dennis James, who regularly appears with the San Diego Symphony’s Nickelodeon series, is a showman with vaudevillian overtones. On Halloween, when James accompanied the Lon Chaney classic silent film “The Monster,” he arrived on the Copley Symphony Hall stage in a casket. After the six “pallbearers” deposited the casket center stage, James emerged wearing a bat costume, pranced over to the organ and played J.S. Bach’s famous Toccata in D Minor.

As part of this week’s symphony holiday program (today at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m.), however, James will assume a more conventional profile.

“My role in this concert is like the Radio City Music Hall organist, who was essentially the glue between the cracks. I usher the people in, accompany the carol sing-along and the vocal soloists, and play the Laurel and Hardy short film “Skyscrapers.”

Since James and the local orchestra started the Nickelodeon series four years ago, the concept of silent film series has spread to other U.S. and Canadian orchestras. According to James, the success of San Diego’s series has helped revive silent films with symphonic accompaniment. James now regularly visits orchestras in Austin, Texas; Pittsburgh, Pa.; Tucson, Ariz.; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Edmonton, Alberta, and Vancouver, British Columbia, to play their film series.

To expand his musical horizons beyond the confines of providing sound effects for the silent screen, James has revived the 18th-Century glass armonica, an eerie-sounding instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin. During this year of the Mozart bicentennial--Mozart wrote two pieces that require the odd instrument--James performed on the glass armonica in 80 concerts worldwide, including one this June with San Diego’s Mainly Mozart Festival.

“Some of the best comments about the glass armonica came from San Diego reviewers,” James added. “I particularly like the critic who described the instrument as ‘looking like Frankenstein’s sewing machine.’ ”

James has recently added another orphaned instrument to his stable, the theremin, one of the earliest electronic instruments. Developed by a Russian engineer in 1920, the theremin was employed by avant garde composers in the 1920s. It was also specified to accompany certain futuristic Soviet films from the Constructivist period.

“I was fortunate to come across the Soviet silent film ‘Aelita,’ ” James explained. “The Soviet film archives supplied me a new print of the film, a science fiction epic that describes a Communist revolution on Mars. Aelita is the queen of Mars, and the theremin supplies her appropriately ethereal accompaniment.”

This year, James presented “Aelita” with theremin accompaniment in France and Italy. His two musical assistants for the Paris showing were Encinitas musicians Erica Sharpe, electric violin, and trombonist Miles Johnson. There are no immediate plans to show “Aelita” in San Diego County, but given James uncanny ability to promote his strange instruments, don’t be surprised if he and his Encinitas cohorts show up at an upcoming film festival.

Numbers racket. The local opera season does not begin until next month, but San Diego Opera General Director Ian Campbell is singing an exuberant aria touting the record number of subscriptions the company has sold for the 1992 season. After Sunday evening’s radio marathon, a total of 10,055 subscribers had signed on for the 1992 season. Since some 750 subscriptions were for series of fewer than the complete five-opera package, the adjusted figure is 9,042 full five-opera season subscriptions. In 1991, the company sold only 6,605 subscriptions. Part of this substantial increase is due to adding an additional performance of each opera, which effectively added another 3,000 potential subscriber seats.

With this strong show of support from the local opera-going public, we eagerly await Campbell’s announcement of the 1994 season. Given the company’s sound fiscal health and subscriber support, surely there can be no excuses for cowardly, unimaginative programming.

More holiday shows. East County residents get their own “Messiah” sing-along at 7 p.m. Sunday at El Cajon’s East County Performing Arts Center. The Grossmont Symphony and Grossmont Master Chorale under Randall Tweed will lead this traditional holiday exercise. The San Diego Civic Chorale and San Diego Youth Master Chorale under Eileen Moss will perform excerpts from Handel’s “Messiah” and J. S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio Sunday at 5 p.m. in the sanctuary of Christ United Presbyterian Church in Golden Hill.

CRITIC’S CHOICE

EAST MEETS WEST ON SDSU STAGE

East meets West in San Diego State University’s Smith Recital Hall Tuesday at 7 p.m. The Tayama Koto Ensemble will perform traditional Japanese music for the unique 13-string instrument associated with 17th-Century Japanese court music. Among the guest performers on the program are Kazuhiro Iseki, a koto grandmaster from Tokyo, Japanese flutist Chisa Sugano, and percussionist Tatsuo Sasaki. Sasaki, who has been principal timpanist with the San Diego Symphony since 1973, will play marimba.