Girl Shy (1924)

Original Soundtrack performed by
Two Star Symphony

Film Summary: Harold Meadows (Lloyd) is a shy, stuttering bachelor working in a tailor shop, who is writing a guide book for other bashful young men, "The Secret of Making Love," chapters from which are portrayed as fantasy sequences. Fate has him meet rich girl, Mary (Ralston), and they fall in love. But she is about to wed an already married man, so our hero embarks upon a hair-raising daredevil ride to prevent the wedding.

Two Star Symphony is Houston's most unusual string ensemble performing all original music. Since its inception in 2002, the group has played many venues from small bars to vast auditoriums, collaborated with local theaters and traveled to both coasts to perform. Their aim is to create new and diverse music that speaks to the collective conscience of a broad audience, with music evoking starkly sketched imagery: a drunken pirate walks the plank, a marionette gains its footing, a black cat turns and hisses, a poisoned apple is offered, and goblins attack.

The Lost World (1925)

Original Soundtrack performed by
Golden Hornet Project

Film Summary: Explorer Professor Challenger is taking quite a beating in the London press thanks to his claim that living dinosaurs exist in the far reaches of the Amazon. Newspaper reporter Edward Malone learns that this claim originates from a diary given to him by fellow explorer Maple White's daughter, Paula. Malone's paper funds an expedition to rescue Maple White, who has been marooned at the top of a high plateau. Joined by renowned hunter John Roxton, and others, the group goes to South America, where they do indeed find a plateau inhabited by pre-historic creatures, one of which they even manage to bring back to London with them.

Golden Hornet Project is a non-profit presenting and commissioning organization founded by composer/musicians Graham Reynolds, leader of the avant-jazz-rock-classical ensemble The Golden Arm Trio, and Peter Stopschinski, of the radically experimental Brown Whörnet. Since 1999 GHP has presented over 50 concerts of indie classical music by more than 35 composers from non-academic musical backgrounds in underground rock, jazz, electronic and hip hop and has world premiered 14 new orchestral works and countless chamber pieces.

The Unknown (1927)

Original Soundtrack performed by
The Invincible Czars

Film Summary: To escape the police, Alonzo, poses in a circus sideshow as an armless wonder. He falls in love with Estrellita, and when detected by her father, he kills him. Then, discovering that the girl abhors the touch of a man's hand, he makes a shocking decision to win her love. Returning, he finds to his dismay that she has fallen in love with another man and is to marry him; Alonzo seeks revenge. Directed by Tod Browning, and starring Lon Chaney and Joan Crawford.

Austin's Invincible Czars have made their mark by creating exceptionally original music: songs and instrumental pieces that are like four-to-five minute "mini-symphonies" chock full of memorable melodies, meticulous arrangements, dynamics, and humor. Their music fuses riff rock, classical/symphonic music, heavy metal, loungey grooves, odd meters, klezmer, country shuffles, punk rock and circusy polka. They draw from influences as disparate as Slint and Igor Stravinsky, Van Halen and Louis Armstrong, and The Melvins and Ween. The band applies the DIY attitude of post-punk groups like NoMeansNo and Fugazi to their musical explorations, resulting in a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.