The path to the Night Temple was dark and steep enough to take your breath away. But a few days before Christmas, a string quartet dragged its instruments up the hairpin stone path to a Franklin Hills living room for a monthly series of house shows. Inside the house, perched on a hill overlooking Los Feliz, felt wickedly bohemian, with black-clad guests circling a barrel of invigorating, bitter tea or eating homemade pasta by the altar in the open-air grotto.
In the living room, the string quartet tuned and cut to life as hosts Carisa Bianca Mellado and Andrew Dalziell introduced the evening's program: four Los Angeles film composers conducting sets of new pieces for piano and strings. As the 30 or so guests contemplated the work—haunting choral performances, minimalist chamber suites, and sacred music melodies—you could hear the determination and intimacy of the musicians deciphering their scores right in front of you.
“One surprising thing is how these really accomplished film composers, who have scored big movies and big shows, say there's something really vulnerable about writing for this,” Dalziell said. “There is a bit of danger in it. Maybe we have a few minutes to rehearse. You can write something that's complicated and it'll be great if they pull it off, but what if, you know?
Cellist Andrew Dalziell performs in a quartet at Night Temple.
(Carlin Stiehl / For the Times)
This small-scale, high-risk act of performance has become especially significant for Los Angeles' tight-knit, avant-garde community of film composers. As funding for the fine arts shrinks across sectors and Hollywood budgets shrink as studios pull out of local productions, workers are still recovering from long strikes and the looming threat of artificial intelligence. . Night Temple is a small response to all that, by local artists no longer miserably waiting for the tide to turn.
“We were so defeated by the industry that you can feel a little desperate,” Mellado said. “We just want to perform; It is our greatest passion. “We need each other and we need to feel connected, and the meaning of success is sharing it.”
Mellado, a singer, and Daziell, a cellist, are both Australian expats working out of a charming Gothic apartment in Los Feliz. They have a darkwave band, Night Tongue, but they mainly make their living from film scoring, sync licensing and string arranging – the bit of everything approach that so many musicians discovered as recording and touring became more popular. became less sustainable.
Both were increasingly frustrated by how digitally isolated their work had become after the pandemic and how rarely they were able to perform live in the studio or on a stage. “I think there was a social trauma from the pandemic, so the reason for doing it at home was just that it's a little hectic going to clubs these days,” Dalziell said.
“The audience is used to seeing the strings very far away, like in the opera,” Mellado said. “It's a beautiful experience, but there's never any intimacy with them.”
Kaitlin Wolfberg, left, Eric Clark, Heather Lockie and Andrew Dalziell perform at Night Temple.
(Carlin Stiehl / For the Times)
In the summer of 2024, they called up some friends (violinists Kaitlin Wolfberg and Eric Kenneth Malcolm Clark and violist Heather Lockie) to more or less sight-read new works by friends at their Los Feliz apartment. They gathered a dozen people in their living room, and while the installation was clearly a work in progress, they were moved by the response.
By the end of the year, the free RSVP series had resonated in the Los Angeles world of classical music and movie soundtracks, sometimes drawing more than a hundred guests once they moved to the largest venue in Franklin Hills and obtained funding from APRA AMCOS (Australia's leading performing rights organisation).
“You hear that some people are just jaded and bitter about the isolation, the constant rejection that is part of the gig but can be demoralizing to your relationship with the music. How can you continue to find joy, community and fulfillment?” said Catherine Joy, a songwriter who recently performed at a Night Temple event.
Joy’s label, Joy Music House, has produced music for acclaimed shows like Apple TV+’s “Presumed Innocent” and the horror film “Speak No Evil,” but she enjoyed the chance to try out some new ideas in a friendly room.
“Sitting on the floor or on a couch puts you back in touch with a really important aspect of what our relationship with music should be,” Joy said. “When you see instruments up close, you hear the bow on a string, you hear the sand. I've worked with filmmakers who are surprised to hear what real music sounds like live, because a lot of people have never had that experience. “It’s a very important part of keeping real music alive.”
Sandro Morales-Santoro, a composer and Night Temple performer who worked on the Netflix hit “Outer Banks” and Hulu’s “Good Trouble,” acknowledged how difficult it has been for many Los Angeles film composers amid several industry crises. in progress.
“A lot of songwriters are still recovering from everything, financially and emotionally,” he said. “It's a complicated job. It's beautiful, but you're an artist in service in another way, waiting for someone else to listen to you and say if it's good or bad. Being able to share that work with friends and the community, it is a dream come true to see the faces and how it impacts them. It's going back to the origins of the music, performing it in front of your community and finding value and beauty in that.”
Carisa Bianca Mellado sings in Night Temple.
(Carlin Stiehl / For the Times)
Night Temple is far from the first Los Angeles music community to turn to house shows to sustain itself right now. The well-funded Candlelight Concerts series, which presents dimly lit classical shows in intimate spaces, has spread across the country. But it's an idea that resonates as musicians caught between Los Angeles' music, film and arts industries struggle to make a living, maintain a community and reinvent models of self-sufficiency.
“The idea of community music is thousands of years old. European salons were the nobility who invited composers to their homes to write and play music. But right now, house shows are very important, especially in Los Angeles, since we work together, but not physically often anymore,” said Jules Levy, a Los Angeles-native double bassist who performed at the Oscars and founded the firm of Savage composition and production. Music for young and underrepresented composers.
Levy launches his own house-show series, Agreement of Sound, without amplification. He said cultivating a local scene of intimate and experimental new work is crucial to keeping Los Angeles at the forefront of a globalized music and film business.
“We need to have an identity here to market the Los Angeles music scene in the world of film and television,” Levy said. “Right now it is a very difficult time and I am worried that it will never go back to what it was before the pandemic. Many productions are moving to London, Vienna or Budapest, and younger performers and composers here may never have that experience. “We have to convince songwriters and studios that we are not only open for business, but that we are the best in the world.”
Whatever industry shocks are yet to come to the songwriting and film music scene in Los Angeles, the experience of being around like minds in a cozy home to play for each other is a lifesaver. Mellado and Dalziell said studio executives and producers have already booked work based on chance encounters at Night Temple, and hope to host awards-season shows for local songwriters competing for awards. On January 18, they held a benefit for local fire relief efforts (a big deal, given that the Palisades Fire claimed a vast archive of works by famed composer Arnold Schoenberg).
But the most important thing is that, in a brutal cultural economy that exists behind the screens, it is an opportunity to be together in the room while the work comes to life.
“We just want everyone to be successful. We want people to get jobs and feel safe and cared for,” Mellado said. “There are so many people who are doing really meaningful work that I think deserve a loving space for that work.”
“Music is not supposed to be efficient and cheap,” Dalziell said. “If everything is collapsing from the top down, then let's build new things.”
