For over two decades Ben Model has served as resident silent film accompanist for The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, has played in many other venues around the Northeastern U.S., and produces The Silent Clowns Film Series  with film historian Bruce Lawton.

Ben composes and improvises all his own scores, and performs in a style that is both evocative of the silent era and also aware of a contemporary (and younger) audience's awareness of music and film scoring.  Ben is also a silent film historian, and often introduces the films he accompanies.  In the spring of 2006, Ben co-organized MoMA's two-month retrospective of the films of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, and in the fall of 2008 he co-taught a silent film class at MoMA, Cruel and Unusual Comedy: Social Commentary in the American Slapstick Film, which will be presented in May 2009 as a public screening series.

Ben has been fortunate to have had his lifelong passion for silent film fostered by important figures in classic cinema: he grew up watching silent movies at the home of Walter Kerr, drama critic and author of “The Silent Clowns” (Knopf, 1975), he accompanied silent movies for noted film historian William K. Everson's classes at NYU while attending film school there, and learned the craft and technique of silent film scoring from legendary silent film organist Lee Erwin. 

Ben has also made the silent film experience portable, by teaming up with fellow film historian Bruce Lawton.  Together,Bruce and Ben have brought their projectors, films, music and knowledge to schools, universities libraries, museums, and churches all over the Northeastern U.S.

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Get reports and insights from shows in New York and on the road at Ben's silent film music blog!

 

 
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