Jon Vickers Scoring Award

The Jon Vickers Scoring Award Program

One of the seminal programs of IU Cinema, the Jon Vickers Scoring Award (JVSA) is a juried competition that awards a composition student from the Jacobs School of Music with a commission to write an original score for a silent film. The score then receives its world premiere at IU Cinema, where it is performed live by an ensemble of student musicians to a screening of the film. Past JVSA scores have gone on to be featured at the Museum of Modern Art and the renowned Pordenone Silent Film Festival (Le Giornate del Cinema Muto), and have been made available on such home-video releases as Kino Lorber’s acclaimed box set Cinema’s First Nasty Women, which was deemed “a mind-expanding endeavor and a triumph of scholarship” by the New York Times.

This is really a rare opportunity... As a student, you can’t get this anywhere else.

Charlie Oh

Queen Kelly

Release Year: 1929

Directed by: Erich von Stroheim

Composed by: Eli Denson

Queen Kelly

Dragnet Girl/Hijôsen no onna

Release Year: 1933

Directed by: Yasujirō Ozu

Composed by: Ebenezer Eferobor

Commemorated the 120th anniversary of Yasujirō Ozu's birth and the 60th anniversary of his death

Dragnet Girl/Hijôsen no onna

Coeur Fidele

Release Year: 1923

Directed by: Jean Epstein

Composed by: Yi-Chen Chiang

Coeur Fidele

Phil-for-Short

Release Year: 1919

Directed by: Oscar Apfel

Composed by: Daniel Whitworth

Released on the Kino Lorber box set Cinema’s First Nasty Women, paired with the Library of Congress’ restoration of the film

Phil-for-Short

Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life

Release Year: 1925

Directed by: Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack

Composed by: Patrick Holcomb

Paired with Milestone Films’ restoration of the film, later screened at the Museum of Modern Art, home-video release forthcoming

Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Release Year: 1920

Directed by: John S. Robertson

Composed by: Ryn Jorgensen

Commemorated the film’s 100th anniversary, paired with Kino Lorber’s restoration of the film

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The Return of Draw Egan

Release Year: 1916

Directed by: William S. Hart

Composed by: Ari Fisher

Paired with the Library of Congress’ restoration of the film and had its European premiere at the 2019 Pordenone Silent Film Festival

The Return of Draw Egan

The Strong Man

Release Year: 1926

Directed by: Frank Capra

Composed by: John William Griffith II

The Strong Man

Body and Soul

Release Year: 1925

Directed by: Oscar Micheaux

Composed by: Charlie Oh

Body and Soul