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| Associate Professor of Music James Doering, Ph.D. |
Associate Professor of Music James Doering, Ph.D., performed the piano accompaniment for the 1914 silent film
Antony and Cleopatra at 3:00 p.m. on November 15, 2008 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Peggy Parsons, the head of the National Gallery’s film program and the daughter of an R-MC alumnus, introduced Doering. An estimated crowd of 450 gave Doering a standing ovation after his performance.
Antony and Cleopatra, produced in 1913 by the Italian studio Cines and directed by Enrico Guazzoni, was conceived on a massive scale, featuring elaborate sets, location shots in Italy and Egypt and a cast of 2000. Impressed by the film’s quality, American promoter George Kleine brought the film to the United States in 1914 and hired George Colburn to compose an original score for the U.S. premiere.
Doering reconstructed Colburn’s music, which hadn’t been performed since 1914, from surviving sources in the Library of Congress. His research has shown that Colburn’s score, which includes an intricate plan of 17 recurring themes, represents one of the earliest American attempts at thematic film scoring. Doering’s work on this project was supported by grants from the Rashkind Endowment and the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges.
Doering has been at Randolph-Macon since 1999 and teaches courses in music history, music theory and keyboard performance. He was the 2007 recipient of the United Methodist Church Award for Teaching Excellence. He is currently team-teaching an interdisciplinary First-Year Colloquium titled “The Sound of Numbers” with Professor Chiru Bhattacharya of the mathematics department in which students explore the intersections between math and music.