Tag: Lon Chaney
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How to Play the Piano or Organ for a Halloween Silent Movie
As a fan and proponent of silent films, I’ve enjoyed seeing that every year at Halloween time, more and more shows of silent films are happening. It’s occurred to me that this means there are a lot of musicians accompanying a silent film for the first time and may be wondering how to go about…
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Lon Chaney in “The Unknown”
Played a matinee of L’Inconnu – or The Unknown – at MoMA today. The print came from GEH and has French titles which looked like they were made in the ’40s(?), white helvetica-ish against black. There is a print with the original release titles around (available from Turner/WB); I played to it at the Cinema…
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Harry Weiss, new altscores, band premiere
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 their silent film shows for…
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recovering from Halloween, workin’ on an orch score…
The week or so before Halloween was busier than usual for me. Five shows, two of which were out of town overnighters, left me a little winded but with a greater appreciation of Lon Chaney’s talents. Three of the shows I played were Phantom of the Opera (Oneonta, NY), The Unknown (Huntington NY) and Hunchback…
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mid-October report
Here’s a new videoblog report about what’s goin’ on right now: News in brief: just been booked as a speaker for a show of City Lights in Feb ’08 for the Greenwich Classic Film Series newly donated Steinway at MoMA now in place, and chrome-legged piano in Titus 2 now out of the picture just…