Silent Film Organ Performance
James began performing films with orchestras in 1971. From 1975 to 1989, James was the final appointed "Resident Organist for the Ohio Theatre" in Columbus, Ohio reviving a professional position vacated in 1942. James had his organ concerto with orchestra debut with the Chicago Symphony at Orchestra Hall in 1984. James toured in the 1980s with silent film stars Lillian Gish and Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers, providing musical accompaniment on national tour revivals of their motion pictures. The New York Times reported on December 13, 1981 that James would play at the recently restored Pascack Theater in Westwood, New Jersey, a deluxe movie house with facilities for stage productions and a specially built Wurlitzer pipe organ for accompanying silent films. James "follows the technique and style of the old-time accompanists, cueing the music exactly to the action and mood on the screen." In 1999, James was appointed House Organist for the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California, House Organist for the Paramount Theatre in Seattle and House Organist for the Historic Everett Theatre in Everett, Washington plus Theatre Organist for the San Diego Symphony.
Read more about this topic: Dennis James (musician)
Famous quotes containing the words silent, film, organ and/or performance:
“Pull down the blinds, bring fiddle and clarionet
That there be no foot silent in the room
Nor mouth from kissing, nor from wine unwet;
Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Film is more than the twentieth-century art. It’s another part of the twentieth-century mind. It’s the world seen from inside. We’ve come to a certain point in the history of film. If a thing can be filmed, the film is implied in the thing itself. This is where we are. The twentieth century is on film.... You have to ask yourself if there’s anything about us more important than the fact that we’re constantly on film, constantly watching ourselves.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“In that reconciling of God and Mammon which Mrs. Grantly had carried on so successfully in the education of her daughter, the organ had not been required, and had become withered, if not defunct, through want of use.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“So long as the source of our identity is external—vested in how others judge our performance at work, or how others judge our children’s performance, or how much money we make—we will find ourselves hopelessly flawed, forever short of the ideal.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)