BIO FILM

Elaine Loebenstein has a special interest in classical ​improvisation and combines this passion with her ​sensitivity and sensibilities as an experienced ​collaborative pianist to respond to filmic art through ​interactive, spontaneous music-making.

Loebenstein composes in real-time at the piano, reacting ​to the visual with extemporised music that has been ​described as a combination of Neo-Classical, ​Contemporary and Minimalistic styles. No two ​performances are the same. She has recorded multiple ​improvised soundtracks for DVD’s of restored archival ​footage for clients including Editionfilmmuseum and ​The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, as ​well as providing the soundtrack to a major exhibition ​mounted at the National Museum of Australia. Her work ​with ephemeral footage has appeared in installations in ​Hamburger Kunsthalle and the Neue Galerie, New York ​City.

She has appeared at film and arts festivals worldwide ​including Viennale, Stummfilmtage Bonn, Giornate del ​Cinema Muto Pordenone, Orphans Festival NYC, the ​Galway Film Fleadh, Budapest Classics Film Marathon, ​Rocks Village Bizarre Sydney, the Enlighten Festival ​Canberra and the Australian National Folk Festival and ​at venues including Sydney Opera House, Cathedral Hall ​Melbourne, Parliament House Canberra, Auckland ​Town Hall, the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York, ​New York University and the SVA Theater in Manhattan. ​She has toured across regional Australia, including ​outdoor screenings in Mildura and Mount Gambier as ​well as at Sun Pictures in Broome, Western Australia ​(the world’s oldest picture gardens). Recent European ​tours have included performances in Prague, Budapest, ​Ljubljana and Linz in co-operation with national ​archives and film institutes. She performs regularly in ​Vienna at the Österreichisches Filmmuseum, Metrokino ​(Filmarchiv Austria) and Breitenseer Lichtspiele as well ​as at festivals including Pianistengasse and Kino wie ​noch nie.

FILM LIST

Film Performances

This list is by no means exhaustive but rather is intended to show the broad range of silent classics that Elaine has ​enjoyed creating live soundtracks for:

• Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligarii
  
• Nosferatu
  
• Battleship Potemkin
  
• The General
  
• The Crowd
  
• Intolerance
  
• Cabiria
  
• Nosferatu
  
• Greed
  
• Faust
  
• The Birth of a Nation
  
• Sherlock Jr.
  
• Der Letzte Mann
  
• Broken Blossoms
  
• Chelovek s kinoapparatom
  
• Way Down East
  
• Nanook of the North
  
• Häxan
  

• The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
  
• Un chien andalou
  
• Foolish Wives
  
• Isn't Life Wonderful
  
• Tabu: A Story of the South Seas
  
• A Trip to the Moon
  
• October: Ten Days That Shook the World
  
• Love, Life and Laughter
  
• Merry-Go-Round
  
• The Closed Road
  
• Frau im Mond
  
• White Shadows in the South Seas
  
• A Corner in Wheat
  
• Die Hose
  
• Alias Jimmy Valentine
  
• The Sentimental Bloke
  
• A Woman of Affairs
  
• Blind Husbands
  
• Fièvre
  
• Liebe
  
• The Last of the Mohicans
  

• Dom na trubnoj
  
• Big Business
  
• Menschen am Sonntag
  
• Ein Walzertraum
  
• Hypocrites
  
• The Mothering Heart
  
• The Musketeers of Pig Alley
  
• Fig Leaves
  
• Der Mandarin
  
• The Wedding March
  
• True Heart Susie
  
• The Country Doctor
  
• Living London
  
• Körkarlen[23]
  
• Seine Hoheit, der Eintänzer
  
• A Girl in Every Port
  
• The Story of the Kelly Gang
  
• Lime Kiln Club Field Day
  
• The Half-Breed
  
• Maria do Mar
  

• Arsenal
  
• General'naja linija/ Staroe i novoe
  
• The Spoilers
  
• Mit dem Motorrad über die Wolken
  
• Rain
  
• Heimkehr
  
• The Man from Kangaroo
  
• The Farmer from Texas
  
• Patineur Grotesque
  
• Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth?
  
• The Hand of the Artist
  
• Die Zwölfte Stunde: Eine Nacht des Grauens
  
• Der Grüne Kakadu
  
• Hilde Warren und der Tod
  
• Das Rollende Hotel
  
• The Rink
  
• I Was Born, But...
  
• Victorians on the Big Screen (BFI)
  
• Die Herrin der Welt
  
• Woman of Tokyo
  
• The Floorwalker
  

• The Floorwalker
  
• Eine Frau von Format
  
• That Night's Wife
  
• Vihar Után
  
• Der Meineidbauer
  
• The Flying Ace
  
• Salamandra
  
• The Pawnshop
  
• Tokyo Chorus
  
• Dragnet Girl
  

Silent Film Series

Additionally she has played for silent film series incorporating the major works of directors including D.W. Griffith, Erich ​von Stroheim, Howard Hawkes, Joe May and Yasujirō Ozu.

Short Film Programmes

She has performed for numerous short film programmes incorporating documentary, ephemeral, orphan, advertising ​and newsreel footage. These programmes have included collections such as The Corrick Collection (NFSA Australia), and ​Victorians on the Big Screen: Films made by the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company (BFI London). She has ​accompanied several programmes exploring early French cinema including the grouped works of filmmakers such as​ Georges Méliès, Pathé Frères, Roméo Bosetti and Gaston Velle.

She has played for a diverse range of archival material presented at festivals, conferences and symposiums such as the ​Orphans Film Symposium in New York, Orphans Special Edition Vienna and the Galway Film Fleadh as well as ​accompanying an extensive series celebrating the work of FIAF (the International Federation of Film Archives) at the ​Austrian Filmmuseum. In this series, curators from member archives personally introduced innovative and thoughtful ​programmes showcasing their own collections.

She has played for documentary and actuality films in historical programmes – particularly in Austria and Australia – ​including many showing Vienna in the silent era, Red Vienna in Die Ersatzrevolution. Filme des Roten Wien[29] and ​Sydney in the early 1900's. She will perform with similar materials in a number of programmes at the upcoming ​conference of Domitor,[30][31]the International Society for the Study of Early Cinema.

In what was her first ever performance with silent film, she accompanied a collection of interesting and bizarre ​materials from the Irish Film Archive at the Kilruddery Silent Film Festival. Additionally she performed at the Saving ​Private Reels conference in University College Cork.

For further information on Soundtracks, DVD releases etc see main website: