Montara Woman Plays Piano Score to Silent Film

This is the fourth year that the Coastside Film Society has staged a silent film night featuring live musical accompaniment by Shauna Pickett-Gordon on the grand piano.

Pickett-Gordon is a Montara resident who studied at USC's School of Music and the Music Academy of the West. After 36 years of working as a technical writer and managing technical writers, she is now retired, continuing to work as a freelance musician, accompanying performers (classical and folk) on the piano, teaching piano, voice, and arranging, composing, and film scoring (silent and new). She is also involved in Scottish violin music, classical chamber music, and belly dancing.

This year the Coastside Film Society commissioned Pickett-Gordon to write a custom score to the 1927 silent film masterpiece “Sunrise.” She played it to an audience at a screening at the Methodist Sanctuary on Feb. 22.

Joe Devlin, independent filmmaker and one of the founders of the Coastside Film Society, took a few minutes of Pickett-Gordon’s performance and turned it into a mini-documentary on YouTube.

Pickett-Gordon is known for being peculiarly intuitive in following a soloist. She says she learned the nuances of playing on cue to performers, dancers and films from her mother, a dance instructor and Martha Graham study.

For more information on upcoming screenings, go to the Coastside Film Society’s website here.

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