 Ben
Model
has served as resident silent film
accompanist on both piano and organ for The Museum of Modern
Art (MoMA)
in New York City for over 25 years. He has played for silents in
many other theatres, museums, universities , schools and other venues
around the U.S. (and in Norway!), has recorded numerous scores for
silent
film DVDs, 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 evocative of the
silent
era. Ben is also a silent film historian,
and frequently introduces the films he accompanies. In the spring
of
2006, Ben co-curated MoMA's acclaimed two-month retrospective of the
films of
Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. and in the May of 2009 he co-curated MoMA's
series Cruel and
Unusual Comedy: Social Commentary in the American Slapstick Film,
which
he
also
co-taught
as
a
class
for
MoMA
in
November
2008. A second round of five Cruel
and Unusual Comedy shows was
screened at MoMA in October 2010.
 Ben is
also the curator of the new Ernie Kovacs DVD box
set from Shout Factory, "The Ernie Kovacs Collection". The
monumental career-retrospective set of 13+ hours of Kovacs shows is now
available for pre-order and will be released in April 2011. Visit
Ben's Ernie Kovacs website – www.erniekovacs.info
– for details!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 can be
found at the piano or organ bench for regularly-scheduled series at
the Silent Clowns Film Series and at the Cinema Arts Centre
on Long Island. Once a month, somewhere in the U.S., one of his
orchestral or concert band silent film scores is being performed
(although, in fall 2010 they were also done in Hong Kong and Canada).
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