Ilan Eshkeri’s Original Score For Academy Award® Winning Film Still Alice To Be Performed In A Charity Concert On 11/25

October 14, 2015 BY Nettwerk

Composer Ilan Eshkeri is proud to announce the concert premiere of the suite of music from the Academy Award® winning film, Still Alice on November 25, 2015 (7.30pm @ St. Leonard’s Church Shoreditch). Tickets are £18.50 and are available from seetickets.com. The charity concert will raise money for the Alzheimer’s Society (registered charity No. 296645).

The concert will consist of music from Ilan Eshkeri, and will include a newly composed suite from Still Alice, performed for the first time at Shoreditch Church. The music will be performed by the same ensemble (string trio and piano) that recorded the original score for the film.

Of his score to Still Alice, Eshkeri says: “Being a film composer you have to be empathetic, you have to imagine what it feels like to be that character, and this is what I have tried to do here, extending the themes from Still Alice to create these independent pieces of music. The start of the piece is about family, it is about warmth and love. The variations represent different aspects of life, but all based upon the initial theme. Then the piece moves into losing oneself in brain disease: memories collide, time is no longer linear, reality is within grasp, there are moments of lucidity but then they are lost.

Eshkeri also wants to promote the healthy effects that playing music has on the brain. Playing an instrument is fun but it also does much more for our mind – it engages almost every part of the brain at once. It is the mental equivalent of a full body workout: visual, auditory and motor abilities are used simultaneously. At the same time the brain works to understand and interpret the emotional content, all with tremendous attention to detail. This cognitive and emotional work creates better connectivity between the brain’s two hemispheres and, in addition, the memory is exercised by learning the music and emotions off by heart. All this means that people who regularly play and listen to music have a sharper and more focused mind!

The Still Alice – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is currently available for download on iTunes and Amazon