Meet the Conductors

Gillian Anderson

Gillian Anderson is a conductor and musicologist. She specializes in the relation between music and moving images and has conducted throughout the United States as well as in Europe, South America, and Canada. Her performances have been described as "triumphant" (The Washington Post), "extraordinary" (Edward Rothstein, The New York Times) and "an enormously involving experience" (Tom Di Nardo, Philadelphia Daily News). Her reconstruction and performance of Nosferatu (Murnau, 1921) with the Brandenburg Philharmonic (Potsdam) is available on BMG Classics (09026-68143-2; LC 0316; F:BM650). A videotape and CD of her reconstruction and performance of Carmen (DeMille, 1915) with the London Philharmonic are available from Video Artists International (VAI) (VAI 69222). A videotape and DVD of her reconstruction and performance of Haexan (Christiansen, 1922) with an ensemble from Prague are available from Criterion Films. A DVD of her new accompaniment for Pandora's Box will be forthcoming from Criterion. With painter Lidia Bagnoli she has made a short film Inganni which was commissioned by and shown at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC in conjunction with an exhibit on Trompe L'oeil. She has been featured on a number of television programs, most notably "CBS Sunday Morning" and "All Things Considered Weekend". She recently has founded the journal, Music and the Moving Image, to be published by the University of Illinois Press.

She has participated in the restoration and reconstruction of the original orchestral scores written to accompany thirty-four of the great silent films and has conducted them in synchronization with their projection at many important film festivals, universities, and performing arts centers with many symphony orchestras: Amor de Perdiçao (Pallu, 1921), Ben Hur (Niblo, 1926), The Birth of a Nation (Griffith, 1915), The Black Pirate (Fairbanks, 1926), La Boheme (Vidor, 1926), Broken Blossoms (Griffith, 1919), Carmen (DeMille, 1915), The Circus (Chaplin, 1928), The Covered Wagon (Cruze, 1923), Four Hundred Tricks of the Devil (Melies, 1907), The Gold Rush (Chaplin, 1925), Haexan (Christiansen, 1922), Intolerance (Griffith, 1916), Jeanne Dore (Mercanton, 1915), The Making of an American (Connecticut Department of Americanization, 1920), Master of the House (Dreyer, 1925), Nosferatu (1922), (Murnau, 1922), Old Ironsides (Cruze, 1926), Orphans of the Storm (Griffith, 1921), Pandora's Box (Pabst 1928), Parsifal (Edison, 1904), The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928), Peter Pan (Brenon, 1924), The Plastic Age (Ruggles, 1925), La P'tite Lilie (Cavalcanti, 1927), El Punyo de Hierro (Mexico, 1927), Robin Hood (Fairbanks, 1923), The Ten Commandments (DeMille, 1923), Tepayac (Mexico, 1918), The Thief of Bagdad (Fairbanks, 1924), Way Down East (Griffith, 1920), The White Sister (King, 1923), Wings (Wellman, 1927), The Yankee Clipper (Julian, 1927) with the Ann Arbor Symphony, the Basel Symphony Orchestra (Switzerland), Basque Country Orchestra (Spain), the Het Brabants Orkest (Holland), the Brandenburg Philharmonic, Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquestra classica da Porto (Portugal), Orquestra Regional do Norte (Portugal), the Cinephonic Orchestra (DC), the Columbus Symphony, the Orchestra sinfonica dell'Emilia Romagna, the Los Angeles Heritage Society Orchestra, the Ljubljana Radio-Television Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Michigan Sinfonietta, the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra, the National Symphony, the Orchestra Symphonique d'Europe, the orchestra of the Teatro communale di Bologna, the Puerto Rican Symphony, the RAI orchestra (Rome, Italy), het Residentie Orkest (The Hague, Netherlands), the San Diego Symphony, members of the Strasbourg Symphony (France), members of the Toronto Symphony, the Vancouver Symphony, the Virginia Symphony, Westfalische Symphony Orchestra, the Eastman Dryden Orchestra, members of the Manhattan School of Music Orchestra, the Classic Ensemble of Northwestern University, the University of Illinois Symphony Orchestra, the University of Oklahoma Symphony Orchestra, the University of Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra, and the orchestra of the University of Chicago.

Ms. Anderson has written four books (among them Music for Silent Films 1894-1929: A Guide which is available from the US Government Printing Office for $27 (C stock number 030-000-00199-1) and numerous scholarly articles as well as edited a number of performing editions. With Ron Sadoff she edited an issue of Film International devoted to music and moving images and with Ron Sadoff and Tom Riis an issue of American Music devoted to film music. Her most recent article, "Musical missionaries: 'Suitable' music in the cinema 1913-1915," was published in the Italian journal, Civiltà musicale 51/52 (gennaio-agosto 2004). She received her diploma from The Winsor School, Boston, Mass., in 1961, a B.A. in Biology from Bryn Mawr College in 1965, a M.M. in Musicology from the University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill., in 1969, and a MLS from the University of Maryland in 1989.

She graduated Cum Laude from Bryn Mawr College, and is a member of the Pi Kappa Lambda Music Honorary. Her book, Freedom's Voice in Poetry and Song, was chosen as the best reference book of the year by Choice Magazine, and her article "Putting the Experience of the World at the Nation's Command: Music at the Library of Congress 1800-1917" was awarded the Music Library Association's Richard Hill Award for best article in 1989. From 1993-1995 she served as President of the Sonneck Society for American Music (now the Society for American Music). She currently serves as a board member of the Film Music Society and a member of the Executive Committee of the Film Music Museum.

She was born November 28, 1943 in Brookline, Mass. She married physicist Gordon Wood Anderson August 23, 1969. They have no children. Ms. Anderson's leisure interests are camping, cooking, cycling, drawing and equal rights.