Graeme Stephen's Metropolis at Soundhouse Winter Festival at Traverse Theatre

“It’s Stephen’s far-reaching guitarist-composer’s voice, now vast and scary, now dreamily delicate, now devishly catchy, that’s making this strain of his output so enthralling” – Rob Adams

Award-winning Scottish composer and guitarist Graeme Stephen presents his score for the 1927 classic silent film Metropolis. Probably the most famous silent film of them all, Metropolis is a pioneering science-fiction classic by German auteur Fritz Lang.

Since premiering this show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2016, Stephen has been awarded a PhD by composition at the University of Edinburgh. He has continued to develop his perspective on the intersection between improvisation and composed music whilst also remaining the most in-demand jazz guitarist in Scotland. His final degree show saw him working with acclaimed viola-player Fiona Winning (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta) and we are delighted that Fiona will join him on this updated score for Metropolis. The show will also feature drums and percussion by Graeme’s long time collaborator, the inimitable Tom Bancroft....

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“It’s Stephen’s far-reaching guitarist-composer’s voice, now vast and scary, now dreamily delicate, now devishly catchy, that’s making this strain of his output so enthralling” – Rob Adams

Award-winning Scottish composer and guitarist Graeme Stephen presents his score for the 1927 classic silent film Metropolis. Probably the most famous silent film of them all, Metropolis is a pioneering science-fiction classic by German auteur Fritz Lang.

Since premiering this show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2016, Stephen has been awarded a PhD by composition at the University of Edinburgh. He has continued to develop his perspective on the intersection between improvisation and composed music whilst also remaining the most in-demand jazz guitarist in Scotland. His final degree show saw him working with acclaimed viola-player Fiona Winning (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta) and we are delighted that Fiona will join him on this updated score for Metropolis. The show will also feature drums and percussion by Graeme’s long time collaborator, the inimitable Tom Bancroft.

Metropolis is Stephen’s 7th film score. He has scored some amazing silent films including F W Murnau’s Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari and Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid. His composition for the F W Murnau classic Sunrise won him the Innovation Award at the Scottish Jazz Awards. In 2018 he was commissioned by Hippfest to compose a score for The Penalty, a classic movie featuring the inimitable Lon Chaney.

The Fiona Winning Quartet is completed by some of the finest string musicians playing in Scotland today: Tom Hanky (violin), George Smith (violin) and Robert Irvine (‘cello).

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