Thanks to the pandemic, it took us a long time to safely bring our orchestra together and have an in-person screening for Film Score Fest. But it finally happened! On Saturday, Sept. 4, hundreds of people gathered outside at Mears Park in St. Paul to watch 18 new short films on the theme “Adapt.” Our 16-musician orchestra scored the films live, led by conductor Kurt Hattenberger.

The film “The Door” was chosen as Best of Fest; congratulations to filmmakers Foreign Fauna (Emory Allen and Alicia Reese) and composer Harriet Luck! The prize is a studio recording of the score at IPR and virtual business cards by Spare Change Productions.

We introduced an award this year: the Orchestra Award. Two scores were chosen by the orchestra members as their favorites: “The Athletic Dream” by Mitchell Dietz and “Lloyd Kennedy: Professional Sasquatch Photographer” by Theo Popov. They each received a $100 gift certificate courtesy of MusicNotes.com.

We had 3 featured performers: composer and multi-instrumentalist Khary Jackson (“Zuri’s Tree”), soprano Nuriel Abdenur (“Down by the Water”), and composer/bass clarinetist/whistler Paul Fonfara (“Floaters”).

Thanks to everyone who supported our 2021 screening on Kickstarter! Special thanks to Gold Sponsor motion504 animation studio and Silver Sponsors Ann Thompson and Mike von der Nahmer.