Bernie Anderson Jr. | |
|---|---|
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| Background information | |
| Occupation(s) | Silent Film and Musical Theatre Composer, Orchestrator |
| Instrument(s) | Organ & Piano |
| Website | http://www.roxysilentfilms.com |
Bernie Anderson Jr. is a silent film music composer, organist and orchestrator. He has presented live accompaniments for silent films, with theatre organ and piano since 1995. He is also active in the preservation and restoration of Movie Palaces, Theatre organs and Classic Film.
A native of New Jersey, Bernie started playing keyboard at the age of five. He earned his Bachelor of Music summa cum laude from Montclair State University in Music Composition and a Master of Fine Arts at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. Bernie became interested in silent films after meeting legendary silent movie organist Lee Erwin. [1] Lee became a major influence on Bernie's composition.
Bernie began composing and performing his silent film scores for organ and piano in 1995 with a screening of Chaplin's "Gold Rush". From 1990 to 2004, Anderson was house organist for the Union County Arts Center (formerly known as the Rahway Theatre) in Rahway, New Jersey and staff organist at the Lafayette Theatre (Suffern), NY from 1992 to 2005. On April 21, 2002, The New York Times reported that Bernie would accompany the silent film Go West (1925 film) starring Buster Keaton at the restored Lafayette Theater in Suffern, New York, a restored 1921 movie theatre that had installed a restored Wurlitzer pipe organ. [2] A student of legendary silent movie organist Lee Erwin and former Radio City Music Hall house organist Ashley Miller, he has performed extensively in the New York City area in such venues as Radio City Music Hall, the Paramount Theatre (Brooklyn, New York)(now LIU Gym) in Brooklyn, NY, The Donnell Library (New York Public Library) and the Dickinson Theatre Organ Society,. [3] In 2003, he was the organist for the Library of Congress American Movie Classics Film Preservation tour. [4] He made his Capitol Theatre debut at the 2005 Capitolfest film festival and has performed at each of the successive Capitolfests. Bernie has recorded new scores for 4 DVDs over the past 5 years, including American Slapstick, Vol.1 for Image Distribution. [5] Mr. Anderson, recently, played for the grand opening of the Bound Brook Theatre in Bound Brook, New Jersey with the film "the Winning of Barbara Worth". [3] In July 2003, Bernie had the pleasure of being the premiere organist for AGO's Pipe Organ Encounter (POE) which was held at Radio City Music Hall on the Music Hall's 4/58 Wurlitzer. The event's purpose was to expose Classical Organ Students to the world of theatre organ. In Feb 2005, in a concert with Dave Kopp, Bernie played the first public NYTOS concert at Radio City Music Hall since 1979.
In 2005, he wrote the orchestrations for a new musical, The Girl in the Frame, presented at Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, and published by Theatrical Rights Worldwide in 2007. [6] [7] Anderson recently finished orchestrations for another new musical entitled I See London, I See France . . ., which premiered at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in September 2007 [8] [9] [10] In 1997, Anderson wrote the orchestrations for "Triplets: The Diva Musical", starring Ruth Brown and Carol Woods (performer) at Theatrefest in Montclair, NJ. From 1996 to 2000, Bernie worked as an Orchestration Assistant to Doug Bersterman and studied orchestration with of Danny Troob
In May 2000, Bernie teamed up with Broadway Composer, William Finn to write 2 new songs based on Ogden Nash poems commissioned by The New Yorker Magazine for their 75 years of New Yorker Humor festival, "I Say It's Spinache!" at the Townhall Theatre in New York City. The show starred Alec Baldwin, Swoosie Kurtz, Buck Henry and Chris Durang with special guest, Broadway performer Debbie Shapiro-Gravitte and William Finn with Piano accompaniment by Bernie Anderson. Directed by Wendy Wasserstein [11]
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound. Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements or key lines of dialogue may, when necessary, be conveyed by the use of title cards.
Suffern is a village that was incorporated in 1796 in the town of Ramapo in Rockland County, New York. Suffern is located 31 miles northwest of Manhattan. As of the 2010 census, Suffern's population was 10,723.
High Button Shoes is a 1947 musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Sammy Cahn and book by George Abbott and Stephen Longstreet. It was based on the semi-autobiographical 1946 novel The Sisters Liked Them Handsome by Stephen Longstreet. The story concerns the comic entanglements of the Longstreet family with two con men in Atlantic City.
A theatre organ is a distinct type of pipe organ originally developed to provide music and sound effects to accompany silent films during the first 3 decades of the 20th century.
Goldilocks is a musical with a book by Jean and Walter Kerr, music by Leroy Anderson, and lyrics by the Kerrs and Joan Ford.
The Lafayette Theatre is a nationally acclaimed movie palace located in downtown Suffern, New York, built in 1923. Its primary function is first-run movies, but it also houses special events like its popular weekly Big Screen Classics film shows. It is also notable for housing a Wurlitzer theatre organ, which is played before Big Screen Classics shows.
The Paramount Theatre was a 3,664-seat movie palace located at 43rd Street and Broadway on Times Square in New York City. Opened in 1926, it was a showcase theatre and the New York headquarters of Paramount Pictures. Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount predecessor Famous Players Film Company, maintained an office in the building until his death in 1976. The Paramount Theatre eventually became a popular live performance venue. The theater was closed in 1964 and its space converted to office and retail use. The tower which housed it, known as the Paramount Building at 1501 Broadway, is in commercial use as an office building and is still home to Paramount Pictures offices.
Ena Baga was a British pianist and theatre organist. She is best known for improvising accompaniments to silent films, both in the 1920s and during the revival of interest in silent films that began in the 1970s.
Jesse Crawford was an American pianist and organist. He was well known in the 1920s as a theatre organist for silent films and as a popular recording artist. In the 1930s, he switched to the Hammond organ and became a freelancer. In the 1940s, he authored instruction books on organ and taught organ lessons.
Dennis James is an American musician and historic preservationist who played "a pivotal role in the international revival of silent films as presented with period-authentic live music." Beginning in 1969, he presented historically informed live accompaniments for silent films, with piano, theatre organ, chamber ensemble and full symphony orchestras, throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and overseas. He is now primarily active as a noted multi-instrumentalist, specializing on Franklin glass armonica and the theremin, prominently performing in New York at the Metropolitan Opera, for Hollywood film scorings, and repeat performances at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival plus performing at the Tanglewood Festival with the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing the intricate glass armonica complete part in the U.S. debut of George Benjamin's opera "Written on Skin".
Gaylord Carter was an American organist and the composer of many film scores that were added to silent movies released on video tape or disks. He died from Parkinson disease.
Sweet Adeline is a musical with music by Jerome Kern, book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and original orchestration by Robert Russell Bennett. It premiered on Broadway in 1929. The story, set in the Gay Nineties, concerns a Hoboken, New Jersey girl who, unlucky in love, becomes a Broadway star.
The Alloy Orchestra was a musical ensemble based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, that performed its own accompaniments to silent films of the classic movie era. Performing on an unusual collection of found objects, homemade instruments, accordion, clarinet, musical saw, and a sampling synthesizer, the group scored and performed with 40 feature length silent films or collections of shorts. The group is often credited with having helped revitalize the art of silent film accompaniment.
Walt Strony is an American recording, consulting and performing organist and organ teacher, both on the theatre organ and traditional pipe organ, ranging from pizza parlors to churches and theatres to symphony orchestras.
Pearl White was an American silent-era theatre organist and piano player who worked in the Chicago area.
The American Theatre Organ Society (ATOS) is an American non-profit organization, dedicated to preserving and promoting the theatre pipe organ and its musical art form.
Ben Model is an American musician, historian, publisher, and presenter of silent films. An accompanist, he composes and performs organ or piano music for silent films. He accompanies films live and records scores for home video releases. He founded a DVD label called Undercrank Productions that releases rare or lost silent films.
Union County Performing Arts Center (UCPAC), formerly the Rahway Theatre, is a non-profit performance venue in Rahway, New Jersey, a small city west of Staten Island that was recently named "#2 Best Small Town Arts Scene" in the country by USA Today. As of the early 2020s, downtown Rahway has become a regional hub in the performing and visual arts. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. UCPAC is the site of the annual Rahway International Film Festival.
Dorothy Jean Papadakos is an American concert organist, composer, lyricist, playwright, and author. She is the former organist at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City (1990–2003), the first female organist to hold that post. She was also organist for the Paul Winter Consort at the Cathedral's Easter and Christmas services and performed with the ensemble on their Grammy Award-winning album Silver Solstice, released in 2005.
Lee Orville Erwin was an American theatre organist who played an important part in a revival of interest in the silent film era. His career began as an organist accompanying first-run silent films in the 1920s. He received classical training in Cincinnati and France, and then began a career as organist and arranger for radio, significantly at WLW and CBS Radio, the latter in association with Arthur Godfrey, that lasted through the mid-1960s. When his radio career ended he was commissioned to provide complete new scores for silent films exceeding seventy in number, and in this capacity and as an organist for silent film tours and exhibitions he received widespread critical acclaim. Erwin was active into his early 90s.