Category: Podcast

Episode 52 Show Notes: William Perry interview (part 2) Interview with William Perry, composer, pianist, orchestrator, and silent film accompanist. From William Perry’s score for The Gold Rush (transition from piano to orchestra) Ben’s introduction WP: In the early 1970s, the curators at MoMA were discovering silent film, its history and its language Pre-screening films…

Episode 51 Show Notes: William Perry interview (part 1) Interview with William Perry, composer, pianist, orchestrator, and silent film accompanist. William Perry’s compositions William Perry’s piano music from “The Silent Years” available on CD “The Beloved Rogue And other Scores from The Silent Years” from Trobriand Music William Perry’s YouTube Channel An episode of THE…

In this episode: Ben accompanies a bunch of shows of silent serials during June, and talks about the musical challenges of accompanying serials and in scoring an entire program of them; Kerr and Ben continue their conversation about Ernie Kovacs’s use of music, and discuss Kovacs’ “Street Scene” video of Bartok’s “Concerto For Orchestra”, and…

Episode 50 Show Notes: Serial Queens, Kovacs Music Videos, and the Charming Raymond Griffith Live shows continue Women And The Silent Screen Conference XI at MOMA and at Columbia University June 2022 Few complete pre-1917 serials survive with all chapters Analogous to today’s serialized stories in streaming television Accompaniment focuses on tension and release –…

In this episode: Ben plays with holding back musically to help an audience of art deco fans connect with Valentino and Nazimova during a show of “Camille” (1921); he and Kerr Lockhart dig in to details about “Oriental Blues”, the theme song Ernie Kovacs used for all of his shows from 1951-1962; and Ben discusses…

Episode 49 Show Notes: Rudolph Valentino, Ernie Kovacs, Buster Keaton, and the Craft of Supporting Subtleties Summer exhibitions of silent films with Ben accompanying are picking up Camille starring Alla Nazimova and Rudolph Valentino at AFI Silver co-sponsored by the Art Deco Society of Washington DC (Music excerpt on an Allen organ) Ernie Kovacs segment: Ernie…

In this bonus episode, podcast co-host Kerr Lockhart talks with Rick Benjamin, musical director of The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, about mood cues and photoplay music from the silent era.