Paragon Ragtime Orchestra with Silent Film Classics at Mauch Chunk Opera House

The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra is the world’s only year-round, professional ensemble re-creating “America’s Original Music” – the syncopated sounds of early musical theater, silent cinema, and vintage dance. They perform the actual scores that were written for silent films, and synchronicity is the key.

As a result, the PRO program is a nearly exact facsimile of what the Opera House, an 1881 theater built for Vaudeville, was like during the 1920’s. The orchestra comprises the finest musicians, many of whom are Julliard-trained or graduates of some of the finest music schools....

read more

The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra is the world’s only year-round, professional ensemble re-creating “America’s Original Music” – the syncopated sounds of early musical theater, silent cinema, and vintage dance. They perform the actual scores that were written for silent films, and synchronicity is the key.

As a result, the PRO program is a nearly exact facsimile of what the Opera House, an 1881 theater built for Vaudeville, was like during the 1920’s. The orchestra comprises the finest musicians, many of whom are Julliard-trained or graduates of some of the finest music schools.

The PRO came into being as the result of Rick Benjamin’s 1985 discovery of thousands of turn-of-the-century orchestra scores once belonging to Victrola recording star Arthur Pryor. In 1988 the Orchestra made its formal debut at Alice Tully Hall – the first concert ever presented at Lincoln Center by such an ensemble.

Since then PRO has appeared at hundreds of leading arts venues, including the Ravinia Festival, the Smithsonian Institution, the Brucknerhaus (Austria), the New York 92nd Street Y, the American Dance Festival, and San Francisco’s Stern Grove Festival. In 2005 and again in 2006, Paragon had the honor of being presented in Minneapolis’s Orchestra Hall as guests of the Minnesota Orchestra.

show less