EDME Premieres New Score for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

About this event

A century-old nightmare finds a new voice this Friday the 13th. Eugene Difficult Music Ensemble (EDME) will premiere an original, all-acoustic score by local composers Ellie Jakes and John Paul “JP” Lempke for Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). The screening and live performance take place Friday, November 13, 2026, at 7:30 p.m. at Monkey’s Paw, 420 Main St., Springfield.

The all-ages program also includes the 1910 short Alice in Wonderland, featuring Gladys Hulette, with an original score by EDME trombonist Dakota Zitterkopf.

Admission is a suggested donation of $15; no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

With its distorted architecture, disquieting atmosphere, and fractured perceptions, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a landmark of German Expressionist horror. Jakes and Lempke’s new score brings EDME’s experimental chamber music into conversation with the film’s unsettling visual world. Recurring musical themes for characters and scenes intertwine with improvisation, extended instrumental techniques, and hints of twelve-tone writing.

Written specifically for EDME’s performers and instrumentation, the score creates its sound world entirely through woodwinds, brass, strings, and voice. The octet features Sadie Zager on flute, Avery Rowzee on oboe, Tyler Kashow on bassoon, Frances Pinkham on horn, Dakota Zitterkopf on trombone, Zoe Oda and Sidney Hudelson on violin, and Grace Kuo on voice.

The accompanying Alice in Wonderland offers another kind of cinematic strangeness: an early silent-film journey through Lewis Carroll’s dream logic. Zitterkopf’s noise and dark ambient score will be performed by the composer on processed trombone with Michael Reed on prepared euphonium.

About the composers

Ellie Jakes is a composer, cellist, and synthesist working across classical, electroacoustic, jazz, and film scoring. Frequent collaborator of Fermata Ballet Collective; MM in Jazz Studies from the University of Oregon.

John Paul “JP” Lempke, EDME’s director, writes solo, chamber, and large-ensemble music, with and without electronics, as well as acousmatic works. Drawing inspiration from the unusual materials and processes of contemporary art, his music explores the absurd, the out-of-place, and the bizarre through soundscapes punctuated by disruption.

Dakota Zitterkopf studies trombone performance at the University of Oregon. His work draws on Western classical music, jazz, composition, and music journalism.