![](https://mmo.aiircdn.com/458/65ef1612cf4db.jpg)
Exciting plans have been revealed for a new festival combining classic cinema with live music at Morecambe Winter Gardens.
Silents by the Sea is a new annual event taking place for the first time on June 8 and 9.
The festival will include a programme of silent films with live music and introduce audiences to the early history of film making.
There will be programmes of silent film with live music - from Charlie Chaplin, to the first dinosaur epic, The Lost World, and spectacular fantasies by Georges Meliés (including his most famous, A Trip to the Moon) and archive film from China - and Morecambe too.
There will also be two new musical groups created, which will bring people from around Morecambe and Lancaster together to make live film music. The People's Cinematic Orchestra will be an ensemble of amateur and pro musicians, working together to score silent films. And an improvising choir, open to all, whether or not you think you can sing, will use the human voice to create atmospheric sound for film.
The organisers Northern Silents have reached more than 50 percent of their crowdfunding target.
The festival will also create opportunities for amateur and professional musicians and singers, with a series of workshops through May, enabling local talent to be involved in making music for the festival.
Northern Silents have been working with Morecambe Winter Gardens for two-and-a-half years now and are a creative partner of the restoration project.
Previous events include the sold-out Halloween Nosferatu with Morecambe’s Off the Rails jazz orchestra, a Blade Runner/Metropolis double-bill, and popular Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton, and Hitchcock shows.
Silents by the Sea aim to build on this success, and kickstart an annual festival which will grow year-on-year as Morecambe Winter Gardens completes its restoration.
The Silents by the Sea programme of events is set to be announced soon.
To pledge your support for this project and help make it happen, visit here.