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score(s) to be performed. The score for the silent motion picture Zorro was written for 12 instruments while the orchestra's ragtime program is scored for 10 or 11 players, depending on the publisher and arranger. The main set-up for a theater orchestra of the era was 5 strings, 1 flute, 1/2 clarinets, 1/2 cornets, 1 trombone, Piano/Conductor and percussion. Variations on the instrumentation depended on the publisher of the music, and of the arrangement. Some of the orchestra's programs of historic theater music call for from 25 to 30 musicians and some of the grand silent film scores call for over 70 players, so the orchestra has to hire out when they perform these programs.
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amalgamation of the well-established
American traditions of vaudeville, tab-show, melodrama, and minstrelsy, all held together by Joplin's marvelous music." He told the Wake Forest University newspaper that Joplin's "real dream was to give everyday people the opportunity, perhaps their only one, to experience opera on their own terms in the music halls and neighborhood theaters." In another interview, for the
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Juilliard's dean, who felt
Juilliard should focus on traditional composers. Benjamin scheduled a Mozart program on solo tuba at a concert hall, but instead led a group in performing ragtime music, leaving open the doors to draw in a wider crowd. Before a full house, Benjamin's group played selections by
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near his home in
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Benjamin was greatly encouraged in his musical career by his grandfather, J. Edward Smith, who played violin, clarinet & piano, among other instruments, throughout his life, and was a musician with the Monmouth Symphony Orchestra, in Monmouth County, NJ,
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Benjamin and the
Paragon Ragtime Orchestra made their New York debut at the Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in March 1988 with a program consisting of a medley of music from the 1890s and 21 songs from the period ranging 1905 to 1920 which Benjamin had found among Pryor's papers. Allan Kozinn for
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Benjamin's interest in ragtime music began in the 1970s when he was eight years old and found a 1917 Victorola in his grandparents' garage. He later recalled that the music he played on the
Victorola connected with him in a way that the pop music of his era did not. He said, "I knew in my bones that
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Because orchestras by their nature and tradition are much more fluid in regards to personnel, there are 36 players on the payroll of the
Paragon Ragtime Orchestra and their appearance at a particular performance depends on a wide variety of criteria including the number of players called for by the
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The Road
Manager for the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra is Leslie Cullen who also plays flute and piccolo and has been a member of the orchestra since 1989. Cullen studied at the Juilliard School and is an adjunct at Bucknell University. Cullen has appeared at the Ravinia Festival, The Kennedy Center,
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In 1986 Benjamin decided to form a 14-piece orchestra of fellow
Juilliard students to perform the music as it had been originally arranged during the period. Benjamin made a request to Juilliard to perform a concert of turn-of-the-20th-century American composers but his request was rejected by
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Benjamin has expressed his hope that his simpler orchestration will allow the material to be presented in more modest venues, indicating that Joplin never intended for the "opera" to depend on a large orchestra. Describing the work as "unpretentious", he notes that the opera "is much more an
227:, but Benjamin thought that the Houston staging was "too heavy, too Verdiesque" and spent nearly half of a decade altering it to suit the kind of 12-piece theater pit orchestra prevalent in Joplin's day. In October 2005 Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra premiered his version of
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Chautauqua, and the
Smithsonian Institution. Cullen is a native of Lawton, Oklahoma and was the former artist-in-residence for the State Arts Council of Oklahoma. Cullen has also played with the Royale Trio and the Linden Woodwind Quintet.
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Benjamin has an extensive collection of period cinema-orchestra scores which his orchestra performs along with broadcasting of the films they were created to accompany. Silent movies for which they perform the score include
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remarked particularly on the variety of the "abidingly energetic fun" performance, which included "a concert waltz, a maxixe, one-steps, two-steps, foxtrots and blues, and, of course, numerous rags, some quite picturesque."
78:. When his jaw was wired shut after his teeth were inadvertently shattered during a tooth extraction, he found himself temporarily unable to play that instrument and instead focused on writing a research paper on
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Rick
Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra have recorded eleven CD's and produced two DVD's of their music accompanying silent movies. Rick Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra perform at the
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for many years until his death. Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra continue to perform regularly in Monmouth County, NJ venues, where both grandfather and grandson lived.
114:, he explained the presence of these rare pieces: "Anybody who was anybody in that era would send their scores to Mr. Pryor in hopes that they would be recorded" for Victrola.
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Benjamin's interest persisted in ragtime, the first popular music conceived and created by Americans in an era where popular songs were brought over from Germany or England.
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Leslie Cullen plays flute and piccolo for the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra at a performance at Hesston College in Hesston, Kansas in October, 2008.
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The concert did not go over well with the dean, who put Benjamin on probation for it, but it had a much more positive impact on
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Decator Herald and Review. "Strange circumstances lead to Ragtime Orchestra's genesis" by David Burke. September 19, 1997.
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Rick Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra perform at the Poncan Theatre in Ponca City Oklahoma on October 4, 2008.
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Wall Street Journal. "Benjamin's Ragtime Band Captures the Real Cohan" by Barrymore Laurence Scherer. July 2, 2008
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New York Times. "Review/Ragtime; From a Trove Of Rediscovered Joplin et al." by Allan Kozinn. March 24, 1988.
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New York Times. " DANCE REVIEW; Fast and Loose in the Age of Ragtime" by Anna Kisselgoff. February 22, 1999.
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Stamford Advocate. "Orchestra performs soundtrack to Buster Keaton films" by Nadia Lerner. January 4, 2007.
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Wake Forest University. "Rousing ragtime 'Treemonisha' comes to WFU" by Pam Barrett. October 12, 2005.
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In June 2003 Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra premiered their version of Scott Joplin's opera
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these performers and their composers were expressing their sheer joy in life through their music."
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New York Times. "Outdoors, Concert Fare That's Serious And Rare" by Allan Kozinn. July 20, 1990.
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In addition to curating the collection of Arthur Prior, Benjamin also curates the collections of
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at the Stern Grove Festival, the oldest festival of its kind in the United States, hosted in an
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San Francisco Chronicle. "How Joplin heard America singing" by Jesse Hamlin. June 21, 2003.
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starring Douglas Fairbanks at the Poncan Theatre in Ponca City Oklahoma on October 4, 2008.
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The East Carolinian. "Paragon Ragtime comes to ECU" by Laura Pekarek. March 11, 2004.
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Lycoming College. "Bach and Blues" Concert at Lycoming College. October 14, 2004.
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networks, and Benjamin has conducted the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra (Denmark), the
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New York Times. "Footlights" by Lawrence Van Gelder. February 17, 1999.
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New World Classics. "Why a New Version of Treemonish?" by Rick Benjamin.
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had originally premiered in 1975 with full professional staging by the
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In February 1999, Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra premiered
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Photos of Rick Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra in Concert
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at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, in collaboration with the
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In addition to his work with his orchestra, Benjamin lectures at
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The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra (Finally) Plays 'The Entertainer'
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Rick Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra perform the
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Benjamin and his orchestra also have performed for diverse
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On The Level...Songs Of Vaudeville & Tin Pan Alley
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From Barrelhouse To Broadway: The Music Of Joe Jordan
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that the show was "exuberant romp to ragtime music."
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Composition of Benjamin's Paragon Ragtime Orchestra
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110:. In a 1997 interview with the
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49:Early Interest in Ragtime Music
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846:"The Deserter (2003) - IMDb"
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247:Silent Movie Performances
195:Paul Taylor Dance Company
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82:, an 1890s
865:Categories
503:References
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425:More Candy
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92:W.C. Handy
84:trombonist
72:Juilliard
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344:Seville
338:In the
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468:(2004)
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851:IMDb
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258:Cops
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