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Work Overview
Neptune's Daughter, scored by Jessica Wells as a
commission from the Women in Music Festival of 2019,
is presented with the permission of the National
Film and Sound Archive of Australia, and features Australian
professional swimmer and vaudevillian star, Annette
Kellerman.
Neptune's Daughter was made in
1914 by Universal Studios in Hollywood. Kellerman plays a mermaid
who swears vengeance on the fisherman who trapped and killed her
little sister in their nets. The film grossed over a million
dollars and earned Kellerman the moniker of 'Million Dollar
Mermaid', which then became the name of the biopic that starred
Esther Williams.
A household name in
the US, Kellerman was one of the first women to wear a one-piece
bathing costume instead of the then-accepted pantaloons and
advocated for the rights of women to wear these bathing suits in
public. She helped popularise the sport of synchronised swimming
and was the first major actress to ever appear nude in a
Hollywood production.
There are only
two reels out of the seven originals in existence. One is
currently held in the National Film and Sound Archives of
Australia and the other is held at Gosfilmofond of Russia.
Work Details
Year: 2019
Instrumentation: Piano, violin, clarinet/bass clarinet, percussion.
Duration: 17 min.
Difficulty: Advanced
Commission note: Commissioned in 2019 for the inaugural Women in Music Festival, RMIT Universtity
Score to accompany silent film provided by National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA). Silent film movie file has embedded click track to output to headphones of performers.
Subjects
- In the form/style of: Film & TV Music
Performances of this work
9 Mar 19: Women in Music Festival, Storey Hall, RMIT Universtity, Melbourne, VIC.. Featuring Plexus Ensemble, Jessica Wells.
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