PUTNEY-Next Stage Arts presents an evening of classic silent film and live music Friday, July 17, at 7 p.m., when pianist and composer Peter Tavalin performs a live improvised score to Harold Lloyd’s 1923 comedy Safety Last! at Next Stage, 15 Kimball Hill.
A graduate of Berklee College of Music and a lifelong jazz improviser, Tavalin has been accompanying silent films since 1979, creating expressive, in-the-moment soundtracks that event promoters say “bring classic cinema vividly to life.”
Drawing on his skills as both composer and improviser, he crafts a specific musical experience for each performance, responding in real time to the action, emotion, and humor unfolding on screen. No two presentations are exactly alike.
For this performance, Tavalin selected Safety Last!, widely regarded as one of the greatest silent comedies ever made. The film follows an ambitious young man navigating big-city life in pursuit of success, culminating in one of cinema’s most iconic and suspenseful sequences.
“These days we can all use a good laugh,” said Tavalin in a news release. “Harold Lloyd definitely rates as one of the great silent film comics in the same class as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.”
Rather than recreating the sound of early 20th-century movie palaces, Tavalin uses a synthesizer and contemporary musical vocabulary to create a modern accompaniment that promoters said “blends seamlessly with the action on screen.”
His repertoire includes more than 25 silent films, and he continues to expand it through performances at universities, museums, film series, festivals, and other venues.
Audiences can expect “an engaging evening of laughter, cinematic history, and live musical artistry as one of silent film’s most enduring classics springs to life through a freshly created score,” organizers said.
Doors open at 6:15 p.m. Tickets are $10 and available at nextstagearts.org.
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.