The 1927 silent film, The Red Mill, is based on the 1906 operetta by Victor Herbert and Henry Blossom. This new score to The Red Mill was commissioned by Turner Classic Movies for broadcast on its movie network. I scored the piece for a small, varied chamber ensemble to keep the mood of the film quirky and light and for the practical reason of designing a score that could be performed live at screenings without great expense to the presenters. Though I decided not to recognizably quote Victor Herbert’s songs in the score, I did use small motivic fragments of his tunes as the basis of several of my new melodies.
