Concerts - 2025

Our third season brings with it much excitement as we now include silent film presentations accompanied by master film organists. We remain dedicated to bringing the best talent to Isle of Wight County and sharing their performances world-wide. When attending our programs, please be respectful of our neighbors when parking and treat our home as you would your own.

Clark gave his audience a splendid mini-concert of "spotlight" solos followed by his heartfelt interpretation of "My Best Girl". We hope to have Clark with us again very soon...

You can enjoy the presentation here: https://youtu.be/E6v-VGnhQOo
 

Our legal-eagles gave a most impressive performance; captivating the audience with their interpretations

You can enjoy their concert here - https://youtu.be/KbQwdytvIQs

 Michael Sansonia is pleased to be Executive Director Joseph N. Graif’s oldest friend. Not that he knows Joe the longest, he’s just really, really old.

As a Musical Director and accompanist, Michael has worked with a veritable who’s who of entertainment names. From Screamin’ Jay Hawkins to Shawn Colvin. From Vic Damone to Mickey Dolenz and Davey Jones. From Gianni Russo to Peter Dinklage to Richard Gere. From Deodato to Michale Feinstein.

His Madrigal Group performed at the premiere of ROBIN AND MARIAN and his Country-Western band for the South African equivalent of the Kentucky Derby. He’s a former musical director for National Lampoon's live shows and television specials, including CLASS OF '86, for which he also wrote several songs. Other television work includes the soundtrack PBS BIOGRAPHY, LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS, CNN TRAVEL SERIES, and the Jane Leeves sitcom THROB. During its original New York run, he conducted LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. He has appeared in several Broadway and off-Broadway shows as an actor/musician. These include PUMP BOYS AND DINETTES (he has, at one time or another, performed as each of the character/musicians in the onstage band) and SONG OF SINGAPORE. During the Toyota Comedy Festival, he was musical director and a contributing writer for FIRESIGN THEATRE. He has performed, arranged, or written music and lyrics for numerous corporate clients, such as MCI, Bayer, Nike, Verizon, Kraft Foods, Beneficial, Sandoz, Reliance, KPMG, CNN, Chase Manhattan, Scholastic, Hallmark, and many others.

For his Graif Foundation performance, Michael plans to concentrate on songs he’s written, with maybe two guitar solos, or one unaccompanied guitar duet thrown in.

You can reserve a seat by visiting https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1276810708199?aff=oddtdtcreator

You can also enjoy Michael playing one song while singing another here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HTT5hwp7WM

 Tedde Gibson is a pianist and classical, Hammond, and theatre organist. He is also a composer, arranger, and silent film scorer. Born in Tacoma, WA, he began organ study at age 16 with the late American Guild of Organists president Dr. Edward Hansen of the University of Puget Sound. Tedde later studied classical organ improvisation with David Dahl, professor emeritus of Pacific Lutheran University. Tedde studied theatre organ arranging with Jonas Nordwall of Portland, OR. He was a regular organist at Tacoma Pizza and Pipes from 1995 until the restaurant’s demise in 1999. Upon moving to Seattle in 1996, he studied with Dr. Carol Terry and Dr. J. Melvin Butler at the University of Washington. He was then organist at First AME Church Seattle.  Tedde moved to the Washington, DC metro area in 2003 and studied pipe organ with Dr. Mickey Thomas Terry. While attending Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, MD, he studied with former AGO president Dr. John Walker.  He is organist/musician-in-residence at First Baptist Church of Highland Park in Landover, MD, and Capitol Hill Seventh-day Adventist Church in Washington, DC. He was organist at Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian Roman Catholic Church in Washington, DC, before the Covid-19 pandemic.  Tedde is an active recitalist and workshop clinician, performing on theatre and church organs across the country, and has recently accompanied “Sex and the City” alum Mario Cantone in the PBS production of “Wicked in Concert,” broadcast nationally.  Tedde became a director of the American Theatre Organ Society in 1997, Vice Chairman of the Board in 1998, and Chairman in 2021.

You can reserve a seat by visiting https://www.eventbrite.com/e/silent-film-presentation-featuring-tedde-gibson-tickets-1309198591229?aff=oddtdtcreator

Richmond's Alex Hassan has been in total immersion 1920s/30s Tin Pan Alley Popular Piano Styles therapy for over 50 years. A pupil of a pupil of a pupil of a pupil of Franz Liszt (well…it SOUNDS impressive?!), he has been a torchbearer for the melodies of between-the-wars Broadway and Hollywood (and European equivalents), devoting himself more specifically to collecting and resurrecting the great “late Romantic with a beat” popular songs that really never had a chance.
 

His archival collection of [mostly] popular piano solo and vocal sheet music numbers around 50,000 titles, entirely from the above-mentioned period. It is a tribute to those heady musical times that there is still so much left to find.

Alex has performed internationally at such venues as England’s Aldeburgh Festival,  Germany's Husum (2007 & 2015 – “Piano Rarities Festival”), Washington DC’s Kennedy Center, the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress, various New York/Baltimore/Washington night spots, and national ragtime festivals. He recorded prolifically for England’s SHELLWOOD PRODUCTIONS, Los Angeleno label OPERETTA ARCHIVES, and Pennsylvania’s STOMP OFF. He also has produced/annotated several reissues of the virtuoso popular pianists of the 78RPM era, for both Shellwood and Stomp Off, and RIVERMONT, for which he has also recorded as a member of the group, "Three for a Song".

You can reserve a seat by visiting https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1309226845739?aff=oddtdtcreator