First Fridays: Down to the Sea in Ships

Name: First Fridays: Down to the Sea in Ships
Start: 2025-02-07T18:00:00-05:00
Location: 18 Johnny Cake Hill, New Bedford, MA, United States, Massachusetts 02740

Schedule

Fri, 07 Feb, 2025 at 06:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

18 Johnny Cake Hill, New Bedford, MA, United States, Massachusetts 02740 | New Bedford, MA

Back by popular demand, an encore performance of Down to the Sea in Ships!
Experience the film just as audiences would have in the silent film era . . . with live piano!
Down to the Sea in Ships (1922), directed by Elmer Clifton and filmed in New Bedford, is a full feature silent film (1:34) that’ll be screened in the Whaling Museum’s Harbor View Gallery with musical score performed live at a grand piano by Jennifer A. Maxwell, a Classical Concert Pianist nominated for a Grammy in 2016 and 2018.
Using some archival material and some original material, Maxwell created a theme for each character (hero's theme, villain’s theme, etc.) and each type of action (love theme, whaling theme, etc.), timed them to occur exactly for the durations of the scenes, and composed them in keys and such that would segue appropriately from one to the next. She also utilized a couple of vintage tunes that would have been recognizable in the day, weaving them in with the original music. All with the purpose of underscoring the narrative and providing cohesion in a medium in which there is no dialogue. With its theme of whaling, and its inclusion of the only legally filmed whale hunt in cinema history, the film is a brilliant record of New Bedford history. It also is notable for featuring the debut of the inimitable flapper girl movie star Clara Bow—and she is indeed delightful!
Doors open at 6:00 PM for a lite bite and cash bar service in the Harbor View Gallery (Upper Level), with limited cabaret style seating, and rows of chairs. for film viewing. Remarks and film screening will begin promptly at 6:30 PM. The event ends at 8:00 PM
ABOUT THE FILM
Down to the Sea in Ships contains semi-documentary footage of whalers at work, and was shot on historic locations in Massachusetts, most notably in New Bedford, and at the Apponegansett Meeting House and Elihu Akin House in Dartmouth. The film's title cards are notable for having quotes from Herman Melville's Moby-Dick and Alexander Starbuck's History of the American Whale Fishery.
The authenticity of the whaling scenes is noted in the opening screen credits, which praise the bravery of both A.G. Penrod and Paul H. Allen, the cameramen, "who, in small boats, stood by their cameras at the risk of their lives to photograph the fighting whales. The Charles W. Morgan was one of the whaling ships used in the film.
The fictional story features Captain Charles W. Morgan (William Walcott) is a well-respected businessman who owns a fleet of whaling ships in the Quaker town of New Bedford. He is very close to his shy, obedient daughter, Patience (Marguerite Courtot), and tells her that she must marry a man who is a whaler and a Quaker, like him. His son and daughter-in-law were lost ten years before while on a whaling expedition; eventually, their baby, his granddaughter Dot (Clara Bow), was found "in a chest on a raft bundled in sail cloth." He has raised her ever since. Dot is a mischievous, rebellious child, who wants to be a whaler when she grows up, an ambition that is not acceptable for a female among her people.
ABOUT DR. JENNIFER A. MAXWELL
Pianist, Educator and Scholar
American pianist Dr. Jennifer A. Maxwell has earned acclaim for her versatility as a performer, educator, and scholar. A 2016 and 2018 Grammy Award Nominee, she has performed thousands of concerts of solo and chamber repertoire across the country, been featured in television and radio interviews, written a film score, and judged competitions.
Maxwell has presented performances at the Providence Veterans Memorial Auditorium, Boston University, University of Rhode Island, Nantucket Whaling Museum, Nantucket Atheneum, Nantucket Music Center, Jamestown Piano Association, Rhode Island College, Music in the Loft, Steinway of Chicago, Mostly Music Concert Series, CUBE Chicago Contemporary Music Series, Schubertiade Chicago, Illinois State Music Teachers Association Chicago, University of Wisconsin, University of Illinois, Music Institute of Chicago, and PianoForte Great Pianists Series, among others; performed concerti with the Southern Illinois Symphony and University of Chicago Symphony; been featured on Live From WFMT Chicago Classical Radio; and she was the pianist for the National Association for Music Education convention.
Recent activities include solo recitals of Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, and Adès; an interview/performance on National Public Radio; the Red Violin program with Red Mendelssohn Stradivarius owner Elizabeth Pitcairn; a program of music by women composers; Stravinsky’s virtuosic Petrouchka on the Nantucket Arts Council Celebrity Series with duo partner Dr. Svetlana Belsky; Beethoven in Havana, a new tango by Joachim Horsley adapted as a piano concerto; and repeat shows of her archival/original score for the 1922 classic silent film Down to the Sea in Ships. She also has performed on period instruments, presenting an annual fortepiano recital at the historic Whitehall Mansion. Maxwell is featured in Jay Craven’s 2022 film Martin Eden. Read the full biography HERE.