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​TOPIC:
Hearing Death at the Movies: Hollywood's Most Famous Melody

SPEAKER:
Dr. Alexander Ludwig, Berklee College of Music

​You've heard it a hundred times without knowing its name. Four notes, descending, unmistakably ominous, the second a character is about to meet their end on screen. That melody has a name (Dies Irae), and it's been haunting art for over 800 years, long before Hollywood ever existed.

​It started as sacred music, a piece of the Requiem Mass sung at funerals to conjure the terror of judgment day. Somewhere along the way, composers pulled it out of the church and dragged it into concert halls, then into film scores, where it's been quietly signaling doom in everything from Metropolis to The Shining to Star Wars.

​In this talk, Dr. Alexander Ludwig traces this eight-century transformation, from sacred chant to secular scream, and breaks down exactly how film composers bend, twist, and disguise this melody to make audiences feel dread before they even know why.

​Topics include:

​How a 13th-century funeral chant became cinema's go-to death cue

​The Dies Irae's journey from church, to concert hall, to movie screen

​Why this specific melody keeps showing up in horror soundtracks

​How composers manipulate and disguise the tune to fit their scenes

​About the Speaker

​Dr. Alexander Ludwig is an Associate Professor in the Liberal Arts & Sciences Department at Berklee College of Music, where he teaches music history ranging from Mahler and Schoenberg to the Beatles. Originally from St. Louis, he studied cello performance at Boston University before earning his PhD in Musicology from Brandeis University. His research spans the evolution of the Dies Irae in film music, the editing techniques behind Bob Fosse's film musicals, and Sonata Theory, and this lecture draws from his book, Hearing Death at the Movies: Film Music and the Long History of the Dies Irae.

​Agenda

7:00 PM — Doors Open (Grab a seat and drinks!)
7:30 PM — Lecture Begins
8:10 PM — Audience Q&A
8:30 PM — Drinks & Conversation
9:00 PM — Event Ends

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Join us and grab a drink as we expose the creepy 800-year-old melody every horror movie steals from... you'll hear it everywhere now.