Author: Ben Model

  • plunging into fall 2010

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    Ben Model

    Back from vacash, and hit the ground running. Prepping for travel to Tromsø, played for Diary of a Lost Girl (first time I used theatre organ since June!) at the C.A.C., book flights to Boise and Massillon, and had to print out and ship out a concert band score for the Hong Kong Wind Ensemble,…

  • “The Spice of the Program” now available on CD!

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    Ben Model

    A piece of chamber music I composed is now available on CD. The Palisades Virtuosi — an ensemble comprised of Margaret Swinchoski, flute, Donald Mokrynski, clarinet, and Ron Levy, piano — commissioned me to compose a ten-minute work for them back in 2005. The piece, entitled “The Spice of the Program” (yes, like the logo/catch-phrase…

  • All finished with the “Auteurist” series at MoMA

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    Ben Model

    Well, stick a fork in me…I am done with the 26 performances at MoMA in June, as well as the Sept-May run of the silents in Charles Silver’s “Auteurist” series, and have come out the other end. It’s taken a day or two for the music to stop swirling around in my head. I initially…

  • video blog June 11, 2010 – playing for Fields, actualities, early pioneers

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    Ben Model

    Here’s the June 11th video blog in which I discuss playing for a Fields silent, as well as for two programs of early films at MoMA and how it went in comparison to the performances of the same show last fall. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yi-eYTJegM&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]

  • guest on WNYU FM’s “Citywide” with Lucas Green

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    Ben Model

    I was a guest on the “Citywide” radio program on WNYU (89.1 FM and on wnyu.org) tonight. Well, actually we pre-recorded the half-hour show last week. The show is hosted by Lucas Green, currently an NYU student who I met in March when I played and spoke at Prof. Antonia Lant’s silent cinema class there.…

  • on the Leonard Lopate show, with Harriet Fields

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    Ben Model

    I was a guest on the Leonard Lopate show today, along with Harriet Fields (W.C. Fields’ granddaughter). Listen to the segment, below, embedded here from the WNYC/Lopate website. http://beta.wnyc.org/media/audioplayer/red_progress_player_no_pop.swf(function(){var s=function(){__flash__removeCallback=function(i,n){if(i)i[n]=null;};window.setTimeout(s,10);};s();})();

  • videoblog: W.C. Fields, the Lumiere bros., et al

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    Ben Model

    Here is my latest videoblog, (hopefully) the first in a series of near-daily blog postings I’m hoping to do this month, since I’ll be accompanying one or two shows every day. I discuss preparing for a show of W.C. Fields in So’s Your Old Man (1926) at the Library for the Performing Arts (6/8), and…

  • 3 weeks of daily silent film screenings at MoMA in June

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    Ben Model

    I will be rawther busy in June. Here is the schedule for the repeat-showings of nearly all the silent film programs in Charles Silver’s Auteurist History of Film series. It’s going to be a blast revisiting all these, and in three weeks of daily screenings of silent film. This go-round, the shows will be held…

  • the complete “Metropolis” on May 7th

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    Ben Model

    Have just gotten the “OK” to announce my performance on Fri May 7 accompanying “The Complete ‘Metropolis’” at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntingotn, NY (that’s on Long Island, folks). This is the new restoration with 25 minutes of lost footage restored. The C.A.C. is doing a one-week run of the picture, and I’ll be…

  • Cinefest 30 – day 1

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    Ben Model

    Day one of Cinefest 30 has gone well. Played for a pair of features from the late ‘teens this morning – Life’s Harmony (dir Frank Borzage) and The Wild Girl (with Eva Tanguay) – and just played for Charley Chase in The Sting of Stings. I’d played for it (same print) last month at the…