Ben Model’s blog

  • Every year the town and village of Mamaroneck NY (where Griffith had studios for a few years) holds its annual “Historic Harbor Festival”. The entire main drag is taken over by a giant street fair with booths, performers, food from local restaurants, etc. Mam’k’s 1920’s movie theater, currently owned by…

  • On Saturday June 21 at midnight (!) I presented and accompanied a program of silent one-reelers from 1913 at MoMA. The program was part of an innovative education program done by Amir Parsa called “That Year, This Day” in which class participants spent time at the museum from 6pm to…

  • Last night I attended the premiere of my concert band arrangement of my Adventurer score. The score was a big hit, and the evening itself was quite wonderful. My wife and daughter came out to Milford CT early and we were hosted for dinner by Dr. Ralph Barbiero and his…

  • Visited Jonathan Law High School yesterday, attending a morning rehearsal of the school’s chamber ensemble – 20-25 piece concert band – as well as the two AP History classes who are studying the silent film era and making presentations at the concert on June 13. Was impressed with the shape…

  • Had a nice long chat with 91-year-old silent film accompanist Harry Weiss the other day. When I began accompanying silent films at the Cinema Arts Center (formerly known as the New Community Cinema) in Huntington, NY, Vic Skolnick spoke fondly of their first accompanist, Harry Weiss. Harry played piano for…

  • I made my Radio City Music Hall debut yesterday, playing for the graduation ceremony of the School of Visual Arts. I improvised 90+mins of music while the graduates came up and received their diplomas…17 groups in all. I used the RCMH’s 9-foot Steinway grand, which was placed extreme downstage right,…

  • Don’t know if I’ve mentioned this here before, but I’ve been making a study of silent comedy filmmaking and how undercranking was utilized. I’ve discovered the comedians not only knew the film they shot would be shown faster, but they used this to their advantage, making many of their gags…

  • Played for seven shows in the last six days. Performing every day for a stretch like this happens every once in a while. A little traveling involved, but not way far out of town. Sunday afternoon was the final program for The Silent Clowns Film Series, and we had a…

  • There’s a nice write-up on my altscore.com site at the Bioscope blog, run by Luke McKernan. Click here to read it!

  • Here’s a review of a concert by the Green Bay Civic Symphony from yesterday. The orchestra’s final concert of the season was comprised of movie music by Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Barber, and John Williams. Oh yeah, and me. They performed my orchestral score to Charlie Chaplin’s The Adventurer (score was…