The Royal Starr Film Festival, an international four day movie gala celebrated in downtown Royal Oak, Michigan, kicks off its sophomore season this October featuring more than 100 screenings of shorts, features, & documentaries. [S-b02-s02]

Screening will include a Meet and Greet Leonard Slatkin who will be attending the screening, with discussion afterward and his new book will be available for signing.

October 12th -14th is the opening weekend of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in its last year with Leonard Slatkin as its Music Director, starting a farewell season. After the screening event, Leonard will be off to conduct the DSO for Samuel Barber's Piano Concerto.

"Leading Tones: Reflections on Music, Musicians, and the Music Industry" at: http://amzn.to/2x1UAxb just came out this week and is already #1 in its category!

Known for his mournful "Adagio for Strings," Samuel Barber was never quite fashionable. This acclaimed film is a probing exploration of his music and melancholia. Performance, oral history, musicology, and biography combine to explore the life and music of one of America’s greatest composers. Featuring Thomas Hampson, Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop and many more of the world's leading experts on Barber's music, with tributes from composers Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson and William Schuman.

The Philadelphia Inquirer acclaimed the film's "great visual polish," adding that the "extremely impressive array of...so much visual evidence is astounding." Composition:Today called it a "remarkable success that rewrites the rules of documentary filmmaking," and MusicWeb International wrote: "This lavishly illustrated documentary...proclaims the meticulous labour, inspiration and persuasive powers of H. Paul Moon and his subject: the life and music of Samuel Barber. This a bejewelled production…that steers a rewarding course between moving things along yet staying still long enough to inform, surprise and please."

See all of the films being screened at http://BoxOffice.RoyalStarr.org

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