German filmmaker F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent film “Nosferatu,” an unauthorized adaptation of Dracula, went against the norms of depicting a suave, shape-shifting vampire and instead presented a monstrous, spidery creature. In the movie, vampire Count Orlok becomes enamored with and haunts the wife of his real estate agent. The expressionist film was shot on location in the Carpathian Mountains.
On Thursday, Oct. 29, the Fox Tucson Theatre will show “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror,” a restored version featuring Hans Erdmann’s 1922 score. It will be accompanied by Brett Valliant, who will be playing the theater’s restored Mighty Wurlitzer theatre organ.
Valliant is returning to the Fox after accompanying the 1925 film “The Phantom of the Opera” last year on Halloween.
Valliant is one of two resident organists at Organ Stop Pizza in Mesa, home to the world’s largest theatre pipe organ. He has worked there full-time for the last seven years and served as their fill-in organist for 12 years.
He will often get requests for modern songs, which can be challenging on a Mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ.
“Those organs play the music of the ‘20s and ‘30s impeccably. Playing the highly rhythmic music of today, they don’t want to do that. You have to really work hard to make that happen, so that’s definitely a challenge,” Valliant said.
The musician has played organs in churches, concert halls and theaters around the world, including venues in Australia, New Zealand, Latvia, France, Germany, England and Canada.
He has also been to 48 out of 50 states.
“It’s taken me to places I would never have seen otherwise,” Valliant said.
He has performed for the American Film Institute and conventions for the American Theatre Organ Society and the American Guild of Organists.
Valliant was named Organist of the Year by the American Theatre Organ Society in 2021.
Throughout his career, he has accompanied and scored silent films and performed at film festivals.
“I’ve done everything from silent films — which is really what those (Wurlitzer) organs were designed for — to concerts that are pop music and jazz, to concerts that are classical. It really is a variety. I would say that if there’s one thing about me that is unique to most organists, it’s that I play all of those. I do all those different things. I play classical organs. I play theatre organs. I play various genres of music. I do films. There’s really only a couple of us in the world who do all of that,” Valliant said.
He has accompanied certain films, such as “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Nosferatu,” a number of times throughout his career. He last played along with “Nosferatu” in Latvia in 2019.
Valliant said the way he prepares often depends on the film he is scoring and/or accompanying.
“Some of the films came from the studio with very complete scores. Most films came with a cue sheet of what’s happening. ‘Here’s the sound effect you need.’ Some films came with nothing at all. Here we are 100 years after these films were made, and some of those scores have been lost. Some of them weren’t very good, and some of them were excellent and can be used today. What I generally do is sit down with the film and go in 10- and 20-second increments. I sit down and start writing out notes, cues, melody lines, whatever I need to follow on the page while also watching the film. It can’t be too detailed because I’ve got to be watching two different things. It takes quite a bit of time actually to get ready for one of these,” Valliant said.
For “Nosferatu,” he developed his own score to use for accompaniment.
“In my opinion, it’s one of the harder films I’ve ever done because he doesn’t give a whole lot of energy back. You have to put all the energy into it,” Valliant said.
Valliant watches the films while he is scoring and when he is accompanying them.
“I think back to one of the first films I ever saw with an organist, when I was a teenager. The organist had the complete score they were following, but they got about two measures off at some point. We sat there for 45 minutes with the score not matching what was on the screen… So, I do try and watch the film closely. I would rather miss something I planned in my score and be in tune with what’s happening on the screen than to be in tune with what’s on the page and miss what’s happening on the screen,” Valliant said.
While playing, Valliant tries to stay true to the tone of the films, but there is some room for him to improvise.
“With what I do, there are almost no rules. I can do whatever I want. Nobody knows if it was in the score or not. It’s 100 years old,” Valliant said.
Throughout the years, Valliant has touched and influenced others through his music. The fill-in organist at Organ Stop Pizza took an interest in playing after seeing Valliant in Boston.
“A friend of his family dragged him to hear my concert and introduced me to him afterwards. He was very shy and very quiet, and I didn’t get the sense that he was interested at all. He ended up going home and researching where he could find one to practice on and where he could find the music to learn all this stuff. Now, he’s playing circles around me,” Valliant said.
Valliant, who is originally from Wichita, Kansas, got interested in music and started playing the piano and organ at a young age.
“My parents wanted me to be a baseball player, and that backfired. My entire childhood from the age of 4 on, I’d spend every waking moment on the bench practicing, and that’s all I cared about,” Valliant said.
He began his professional career at age 11 and was traveling the country to perform by age 15.
He said the most impactful part of playing music has been the connections he has made with others.
“I realized about five years into my performing career that the real reward in all of this was meeting incredible people, and that remains true. It is such a gift to be able to go and meet interesting people and other great musicians,” Valliant said.
Valliant wasn’t interested in the Wurlitzer organ until he heard it played live.
“My organ teacher when I was a kid was very against the Wurlitzer. She was very into classical music, and she had told me how awful they were. I wanted nothing to do with them. A friend of mine took me against my will to hear a performance one night when I was 15 years old, and within about 10 seconds, my life was forever changed,” Valliant said.
After that performance, he met Michael Coup, who had a Wurlitzer in his home and let Valliant come over to practice on it.
He said playing the Wurlitzer is different than the church organ, and it took him some time to learn.
“I was just thrashing around with it. I was making horrible noises and sounds. Then one day, I walked into that house that had the organ, and somebody else was playing, and whatever they were doing, when I watched them and listened carefully, it all clicked. From then on, it quickly came together…. Basically a year later, I started performing nationally and internationally,” Valliant said.
The first film that Valliant ever accompanied was the 1924 silent film “Peter Pan,” which he still does today.
“It’s a fun film, and I wasn’t nervous or particularly challenged by the musical aspect of it. I was nervous about doing it for the first time in front of an audience, but that faded pretty quickly. It was definitely a good first film to do,” Valliant said.
One of his favorite silent films to accompany has been the 1927 romantic comedy “My Best Girl.”
“It’s one of those movies that they could re-release today with words, and it would sell. It’s very relevant and very approachable… I’ve done it about half a dozen times. I actually never knew about this film until a colleague of mine was supposed to play it in New York City about four or four years ago and had to cancel for health reasons. I ended up racing off to New York, and I was on a plane watching this thing on YouTube. I didn’t have a score ready. I was watching this film going, ‘Oh, this is great. This is so easy to watch.” It went over very well. From then on, whenever a venue would call me and ask if I had an opinion on a film, I would say, ‘Let’s do ‘My Best Girl,’” Valliant said.
“Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror” Accompanied by Mighty Wurlitzer Theatre Organ
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29
WHERE: Fox Tucson Theatre, 17 W. Congress Street, Tucson
COST: $18
MORE INFO: foxtucson.com
