Program Overview
Dorothy Papadakos will be improvising the organ accompaniments for three short Charlie Chaplin films (about 20 min each) from his brilliant 1917 Mutual Films series: The Cure, The Immigrant & The Adventurer. The music is all original, based on cue sheets composed for each film, and then improvised off the cue sheets, when silent films had only pianists & organists to provide the sound & special effects that brought the film to life!
The spectacular Summerall pipe organ will be put through its paces as Charlie Chaplin turns everything upside down in hilarity. The goal is to use every pipe on the organ and to play the instrument in ways people have perhaps not experienced. Dorothy brings a unique perspective to organ music, as 99% of her audiences have never attended a live-accompanied silent film, so everything old is new again!
Biography
Dorothy J. Papadakos is a Juilliard-trained Concert Organist & Composer, internationally renowned as one of the great organ improvisers of our time. She is the only woman organist today accompanying silent films on the international stage and was the first & only woman Cathedral Head Organist at NYC’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine from 1990-2003.
A member of the 6-time Grammy Award-winning Paul Winter Consort, Dorothy is celebrated for her sold-out, rave-reviewed silent film screenings and for improvising on the world’s great pipe organs. Her Halloween Horror Tour is an annual Fall tradition in concert halls, cathedrals, churches & venues around the world, from Singapore to Norway, England, Germany and across America, including SF Jazz at Grace Cathedral (17 seasons) and Kansas City Symphony (7 seasons) where her performances sell out 1,300 seats every show.
Dorothy specializes in accompanying silent horror film classics, Phantom of the Opera (1929), Nosferatu (1922, 1st vampire film), Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1920), Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger (1927, his 1st hit & 1st psychological thriller), Charlie Chaplin comedies (1917) & much more!