In 1912, French playwright Gabriel Mourey asked a composer named Claude Debussy to write incidental music for his play, Psyché.
The first unaccompanied flute solo written for the modern Böhm flute system, Syrinx is considered a landmark in music history.
Director: Grace Choi
Flutist: Tina Jia, Recorded at the University of Toronto Walter Hall Auditorium
Voice: Naomi Vann
Sound Designer: Bethany Harrison
Flutist: Tina Jia, Recorded at the University of Toronto Walter Hall Auditorium
Voice: Naomi Vann
Sound Designer: Bethany Harrison
Animation Cleanup and Colour Assist: Chaehyun Lee, Cynthia Xie, Isabelle Yu, Jeongyool Park, Kloe Qiyin Huang, Maggie Ng, Rachel Sy, SuJeong Park, Tina Fan, Youko Lin Ye
Film Mentor: David Quesnelle
Film Mentor: David Quesnelle
But...what does Syrinx mean?
Set to the titular flute solo by Claude Debussy, this film aims to answer this question. It explores the meaning, the music, and the classical Greek myth of Syrinx: the story of the satyr Pan and the wood nymph Syrinx. Turning back the wheel of time, I wanted to represent the story through a lens of nostalgia, using motifs of old film slides and storybook borders.
Paying homage to Debussy’s era of Romanticism in the early 20th century arts, French Art Deco is a big visual inspiration of the film. This was a period that also frequently drew from the past - enamoured with Greek mythos and folklore. Highly decorative, thoughtfully designed and evocative of old tales.
