Ben Model

Ben Model is one of the nation’s leading silent film accompanists, performing on both piano and theatre organ. Over the past 44 years, he has created and performed several hundred live scores for silent films.

Ben is a resident film accompanist at the Museum of Modern Art (NY) and at the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus Theatre, and is a regular at the TCM Classic Film Festival, the Kansas Silent Film Festival and at Capitolfest in upstate NY. His recorded scores can be heard on numerous Blu-Ray and DVD releases from Kino Lorber, Milestone Films and his own label Undercrank Productions, as well as on Turner Classic Movies. Ben’s Undercrank Productions has released many rare undiscovered gems of the silent era that have been out of circulation since the 1920s. These discs including films starring Marion Davies, Tom Mix, and Raymond Griffith, as well as lesser-known comedians such as Marcel Perez, Alice Howell, and Baby Peggy, all released through of a co-branding arrangement with the Library of Congress.

Ben is a regular accompanist at classic film festivals around the U.S.A. and internationally, and he performs at universities, museums and historic theaters. Ben is the producer and co-founder of The Silent Clowns Film Series (1997–present), a monthly film series in NYC. Ben has co-curated several silent film series for MoMA and co-curates a monthly silents series at the Cinema Arts Centre on Long Island.

Ben has composed orchestral scores for several silent comedy shorts which are performed annually by ensembles around the U.S. and Canada. In his capacity as archivist for the Ernie Kovacs collection, he has programmed three DVD box sets of Ernie Kovacs television shows and is co-editor of the book Ernie In Kovacsland, published by Fantagraphics Books in July 2023. . Ben is a Visiting Professor of Film at Wesleyan University, where he teaches a course on silent film history. His book The Silent Film Universe was published on June 17, 2025.