Frame Ensemble
Frame Ensemble is Northern Silents’ resident improvising quartet.
Frame Ensemble is a distinctive collaboration between four expert improvising musicians from the north of England: pianist Jonny Best, cellist Elizabeth Hanks, violinist Susannah Simmons, and percussionist Trevor Bartlett. Since 2018, the quartet has built a reputation for creating live soundtracks of exceptional musicality and cinematic sensitivity.
Every performance is unique. Responding spontaneously to the unfolding images on screen, the musicians craft a score in real time, shaping sound and silence with fine detail and dramatic instinct. The result is a one‑of‑a‑kind experience: a soundtrack born in the moment, shared with the audience as the film comes alive.
Frame Ensemble appears annually at York’s National Centre for Early Music and The Stoller Hall in Manchester as part of the Northern Silents programme. The group adapts flexibly to each project, sometimes performing as a trio or expanding beyond its core quartet for special collaborations.
For booking enquiries please contact Jonny Best.
Coming up in October/November 2025:
A performance and masterclass at University of Manchester on October 2nd
The Divine Voyage at National Centre for Early Music on October 6th
Nosferatu at The Stoller Hall on 31st October and National Science and Media Museum Bradford on 1st November (with composer and sonic artist Ben Gaunt)
Frame Ensemble’s work since 2018
Their frequent Northern Silents performances include The Great White Silence (Abbeydale Picture House Sheffield, York Concerts and Hull Truck), The Woman Men Long For (Abbeydale Picture House, Hippodrome Silent Film Festival), Eisenstein’s Strike, Julien Duvivier’s Au Bonheur des Dames, and The Brilliant Biograph: Earliest Moving Images of Europe, 1897-1902 (all at Abbeydale Picture House). At Harrogate Theatre they’ve performed The Passion of Joan of Arc, and at Harrogate Odeon, Metropolis.
Frame has appeared regularly at York’s National Centre for Early Music since 2019, performing Nosferatu, Nanook of the North, The Phantom Carriage, and South. The quartet also made its debut at Chester’s Storyhouse with Nosferatu and Old Woollen, Leeds, with Pandora’s Box. At Manchester’s Stoller Hall, Frame has scored Pandora’s Box and Au Bonheur des Dames.
Frame Ensemble is Liz Hanks (cello), Susannah Simmons* (violin), Trevor Bartlett (percussion), and Jonny Best (piano).
*Replacing violinist Irine Røsnes, who performed with Frame Ensemble from its founding in 2018 until 2023.
An excerpt from Frame’s 2021 soundtrack to The Woman Men Yearn For at Hippodrome Silent Film Festival.
“...a brilliantly effective musical commentary on the 1929 Marlene Dietrich thriller The Woman Men Yearn For (*****), so persuasively argued that it was hard to believe they were making it up on the spot.”
— David Kettle, Classical Music Critic, The Scotsman, April 2021 on Frame Ensemble’s The Woman Men Yearn For at Hippodrome Silent Film Festival.
“...a superb, sophisticated and insightful improvised score that greatly complimented the screening”
— Alfred Searls, Northern Soul, September 2023, on Frame Ensemble’s Pandora’s Box at The Stoller Hall, Manchester.