Dennis James

Dennis James (born 1950) is an American musician and historic preservationist. Beginning in 1969, he presented historically informed live accompaniments for silent films, with piano, theatre organ, chamber ensemble and full symphony orchestras, throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and overseas. He is now primarily active as a noted multi-instrumentalist, specializing on Franklin glass armonica and the theremin, prominently performing in New York at the Metropolitan Opera, for Hollywood film scorings, and repeat performances at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival (debuting in 1991 with Roger Norrington and the London Classical Players) plus performing at the Tanglewood Festival with the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing the intricate glass armonica complete part in the U.S. debut of George Benjamin's opera "Written on Skin".

James has also become active in the preservation and restoration of other historic instruments such as the French Cristal Baschet and Ondes Martenot plus has begun performing early syncopated jazz and mid-century moderne styled period-piano repertoire within a multitude of other specialist musical activities generally considered of marginal cultural impact and predominantly subject to the periodic whims of amateurs and enthusiasts.

Early musical training James was born in Philadelphia, in 1950. He began formal organ training at the age of 12. At the age of 16, he replaced his teacher, Leonard MacClain, in concert after MacClain suffered a heart attack before the performance, which placed him on an international touring circuit. James attended Indiana University's School of Music as a student of concert and church organ performance, earning his bachelor's and master's degrees under the tutelage of Dr. Oswald G. Ragatz.

Silent film organ performance James began performing films in October, 1969 and soon in full scale revival performances together with symphony orchestras beginning in 1971. From 1975 to 1989, James was "Resident Organist for the Ohio Theatre" in Columbus, Ohio having revived a bygone era professional position vacated in 1942. James had his organ concerto with orchestra debut with the Chicago Symphony at Orchestra Hall in 1984.

Organ performance positions

James currently is the appointed (2010) "Theatre Organist for the Washington Center" a professional position in the Washington Center for the Performing Arts in Olympia, Washington, the appointed (2010) "House Organist" for the Historic Coleman Theatre, Miami, Oklahoma, the Cinequest Festival silent film organist for California Theatre in San Jose, California, and Silent Film organist for the Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, California.

Production company James performs under the aegis of his own production companies, Crystal City Music and Silent Film Concerts. James has assembled one of the largest private libraries of authentic period-published historical scores and generic historical music in existence (including complete original film scores and hundreds of published generic silent film music compositions that he uses to create compiled musical scores for his recreations where the originals do not survive). touring as the Duo Filmharmonia performing all classical repertoire scorings, commissioned initially by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., to the restored 1921 German version of The Asta Nielsen “Hamlet”, with Danish actress Asta Nielsen. That "historical compilation scoring is made up solely of excerpted compositions by the sons of [Johann Sebastian] Bach performed in a keyboard duo-performers format utilizing three instruments (organ, fortepiano, harpsichord) and a guest mezzo-soprano vocalist." The duo also scored and performed on tour the preserved Marion Davies “Janice Meredith” and the Conrad Veidt “Hands of Orlac” silent films.

On September 14, 2007, James performed the score to Tumbleweeds in a live performance at the Poncan Theater (built in 1923) in Ponca City, Oklahoma as a special commission as part of a celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of Oklahoma Statehood.

Glass armonica performance Dennis James plays the Franklin Glass Armonica at the Poncan Theatre in Ponca City, Oklahoma on April 2, 2011. James plays the Franklin glass armonica and has collected other vitreous music instruments including several Francis Hopkinson Smith's 19th century Grand Harmonicons, one of the few surviving Beyer 18th c. Glass-cords, and modern glass instrument inventions such as verrophone, the Cristal Baschet, along with a wide variety of glass flutes and glass bells. James plays the glass armonica, the cristal and the seraphim on the CD in original historical compositions for glass by Mozart, Scarlatti, Schnaubelt, and Fauré. Dennis James at the Movies. Ohio Theatre Summer Series (1975) Dennis James at the RTOS Wurlitzer Dennis & Heidi James – Puttin' on the Ritz Cristal: Glass Music Through the Ages (2002)