Maud Nelissen

Maud Nelissen is a composer, pianist and film accompanist. In recent years she has devoted more and more time to composing

(silent) film music. In 1999 she worked with Charlie Chaplin's own pianist and arranger Eric James in Italy and since then she has become a popular film accompanist at many festivals and special events in Europe and America.

For her own compositions Maud Nelissen respects the original 1910's and 20's styles, but she develops and blends these with her own modern inventions. Commissioned by the Dutch Film in Concert, she composed a very successful orchestral score for The Patsy (1928) starring Marion Davies.

Maud founded her own silent film ensemble “The Sprockets” together with them she gave a series of sell-out film concerts at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam. She made her American début at the Telluride Film festival in Colorado.

Maud Nelissen performed and conducted in 2008 at the Komische Oper, Berlin. Here she presented, with permission of the Franz Léhar Estate, her score for ‘The Merry Widow’ (1925), directed by Erich von Stroheim. The score is written for a chamber orchestra and is partly based on the music of Franz Léhar and Maud Nelissen's own music.

In 2012 The Cello8ctet Amsterdam and Maud worked successfully together in a silent film program, which toured throughout Holland.