No silent treatment for "Nosferatu"

October 25, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

By GUY D’ASTOLFO

YOUNGSTOWN

This Friday, audiences can experience “Nosferatu” the way it was intended when it was released 90 years ago.

Stambaugh Auditorium will screen the classic 1922 silent film about a vampire with musical accompaniment on the pipe organ.

The Halloween-inspired performance will feature internationally respected organist Tom Trenney.

Stambaugh’s massive pipe organ was manufactured in 1926. It underwent a $1.3 million restoration a few years ago.

Trenney, of Lincoln, Neb., is looking forward to the performance, which he said will be an unduplicatable event.

“There is a really neat experience when you have a pipe organ,” he said in a phone interview. “You know you are hearing things that you might never hear again. Even if I come back [for another performance], it will not ring across the exact same way. It’s very different from watching it at home on a DVD.”

The Stambaugh performance of “Nosferatu” will be the first for Trenney, but not the last. He will do it again Sunday in Louisville, Ky.

Noted for his improvisational skill, Trenney said he has practiced the performance but will not rely on printed music. That’s because he wants to bring spontaneity to the 90-minute performance.

“There are musical themes that attach to certain characters, but I make up a lot of it on the spot,” he said. “It’s very in-the-moment. I am inspired by what I see [as the film progresses].”

Watching a silent film with pipe organ accompaniment becomes an interactive experience for the audience. “There are gasps and ooohs and cheers,” he said.

Trenney is the minister of music at First-Plymouth Congregational Church in Lincoln, Neb. A Lake County, Ohio, native and a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, he is also the artistic director of Abendmusik: Lincoln Concert Series.

In 2006, he became the first organist to be awarded First Prize and Audience Prize in the American Guild of Organists’ National Competition in Organ Improvisation.

He maintains a busy touring and recording schedule.