Ben Model

Ben Model is one of the nation’s leading silent film accompanists, performing on both piano and theatre organ, and is thrilled to be playing at the TCM Classic Film Festival again. Over the past 40+ years he has created and performed thousands of live scores for silent films. He is a resident film accompanist at the Museum of Modern Art (NY) and at the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus Theatre. Model is a regular accompanist at classic film festivals around the U.S.A. and internationally, and he performs at universities, museums, and historic theaters. He has composed orchestral scores for several silent comedy shorts which are performed annually by ensembles around the U.S. and Canada. 

Model’s recorded scores can be heard on numerous Blu-Ray/DVD releases from Kino Lorber, Milestone Films, and his own label Undercrank Productions, as well as on Turner Classic Movies. Undercrank Productions has restored and released many rare undiscovered gems of the silent era, including films starring Marion Davies, Edward Everett Horton, Marcel Perez, Alice Howell, and others that have been out of circulation since the 1920s, as part of a co-branding arrangement with the Library of Congress. 

Model has co-curated several silent film series for MoMA and co-curates a monthly silent film series at the Cinema Arts Centre on Long Island. Ben is a Visiting Professor of Film at Wesleyan University, where he teaches a course on silent film history.

Ben was the first to take the silent film experience online during the COVID pandemic, launching The Silent Comedy Watch Party in mid-March of 2020 as a live-streamed YouTube program. Referred to by fans as “one of the few good things to come out of the pandemic”, the show is still ongoing, and celebrated its 4th anniversary and its 100th episode in March 2024. 

In his capacity as an archivist for the Ernie Kovacs collection, he has programmed three DVD box sets of Ernie Kovacs’ television shows and is co-editor of the new book Ernie In Kovacsland.