Coconut Grove Music Series presents: Silents, Please!

Silents, Please!

Two Silent Comedy Films with live musical accompaniment featuring Fatty Arbuckle, Charlie Chaplin, and Buster Keaton

"The Masquerader"

Charlie Chaplin

A rare early film in which Chaplin, in the first scene, appears without make-up, moustache or his famous tramp costume.

The film is set in a movie lot, where Charlie is hired as an actor; he is subsequently fired for insubordination. He returns disguised as a flamboyant actress, fooling the boss. Arbuckle makes an appearance at the beginning of the film.

“Sherlock Jr.”

Buster Keaton was 28 years old when he starred in “Sherlock Jr.”, one of the most visually inventive silent comedies ever made.

Keaton plays a movie theatre projectionist who dreams of becoming a super-sleuth, and, in one sequence, literally steps into the movie

screen to bring his fantasy to reality, This film is famous for its amazing, hilarious physical stunts and special effects -- all performed by Keaton himself. It has been called one of the 100 funniest films of all time.

The Musician

John Fenstermaker lives in Naples FL and is Director of Chapel Concerts at Moorings Park and organist of the First Church of Christ, Scientist.

His grandfather was an actor in the early days of the silents, in New York, before the industry moved to California because of cheaper rents and better weather. John has compiled these two film scores featuring music from the silent film era. He played his first silent movie, featuring the Keystone Kops, for a children's program at the Indianapolis public library when he was eleven years old.

John was director of Music at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco for 30 years during which time he accompanied many silent films including The Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The General, Steamboat Bill, and The Ten Commandments.

John studied the organ in France with noted scholar and performer André Marchal. He was assistant organist and choirmaster at the Washington National Cathedral, where he also taught French and music at St. Albans School. After a year in England studying with Allan Wicks at Canterbury Cathedral, he was appointed organist and choirmaster of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, where, in a career spanning three decades, he directed the celebrated choir of men and boys. He has played under the batons of Seiji Ozawa, Michael Tilson Thomas, Carmen Dragon, Jan Pascal Tortelier and Arthur Fiedler. He translated into English Marcel Dupré’s Traité d’Improvisation à l’Orgue (Organ Improvisation), published by Leduc. John is an Associate of the American Guild of Organists and is active in its Southwest Florida Chapter. His hobbies are sailing and accompanying silent films.

Host or Publisher St. Stephen's Coconut Grove Music Series