All five artists for 2025 have been engaged. Only one date remains to be set. We are excited to report that silent film screenings with unit orchestra (theatre organ) accompaniment are included in the schedule. Stay tuned!!
The Graif's two-story music room containing their Allen digital unit orchestra and Bösendorfer piano
Clark Wilson is one of the most prominent and recognized scorers of silent photoplays in America today. He works exclusively with the unit orchestra in developing accurate and historic musical accompaniments as they were performed in major motion picture palaces during the heyday of the silent film.
Wilson began his scoring career in 1980 and has successfully toured with hundreds of film presentations at schools and universities, concert halls and performing arts centers, theatres, film festivals, and conventions. He is the organist of choice for many of the American Theatre Organ Society’s international convention silent-film presentations, has performed at American Guild of Organists and Organ Historical Society conventions and the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival, and has scored pictures for Kino International for public DVD release. He currently enjoys creating scores for (and working with Suzanne Lloyd on the presentation of) classic Harold Lloyd comedies. His work has encompassed North America, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
Wilson was presented with the American Theatre Organ Society’s Organist of the Year award in 1998. A successful organ technician, tonal finisher, and consultant, he runs his own organ shop and has been professionally involved with over 200 pipe organ installations to date. Most recently, he has headed projects to save and transplant a late Aeolian-Skinner instrument from Ohio State University, and to relocate a large Wurlitzer organ to Ohio Dominican University in Columbus. He has earned the ATOS Technician of Merit award, the first of only two persons ever to receive both ATOS distinctions.
"My Best Girl", released in 1924, is a classic romantic comedy in every aspect. The shopgirl (played by Mary Pickford) falls in love with the shop owner's son (played by Charles "Buddy" Rogers). Their journey will bring both a smile to your face and a tear to your eye. Clark will cue the film using his original score at the Graif's Allen GW-4Q digital unit orchestra. If you have never experienced viewing a silent film cued by a consummate musician, you must not miss this event!
You can reserve a seat by visiting https://www.eventbrite.com/e/silent-film-my-best-girl-accompanied-by-clark-wilson-tickets-1243625339869?aff=oddtdtcreator
You can also enjoy Clark interpreting the music of Burton Lane here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PboRVTTO3bc
Advocatorum Musicis (Latin for “musical lawyers”) are three friends who, in
addition to practicing law in their respective fields of family, bankruptcy, and
criminal law, have performed together for almost twenty years in cabarets,
musical theater, and recital formats. With vocals by Luisa Fuentes, directed
by pianist Rozanne Sullivan and featuring Frank Kolodzieski on clarinet and
alto and tenor saxophone, their repertoire spans the history of American
music: jazz, Broadway, the Great American Songbook, pop and gospel.
Featuring original arrangements of well-known works by George Gershwin,
Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim, Kurt Weill, and Leonard Bernstein, as well
as contemporary composers such as Donald Fagen (Steely Dan) and Jim
Steinman (Meatloaf), Advocatorum Musicis believe that every song tells a
story in its own unique fashion. Join us for an afternoon of musical
vignettes as we journey through the past 100 years of American musical
excellence presented with a fresh perspective.
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 P. Diddy. From Misty Rowe 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.
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.
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".
Receive our quarterly newsletter and upcoming concert annoucements!
We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.