Local organist scores right notes for films

By Ed Bark

It’s now been 60 years since troubadours Simon & Garfunkel made “The Sound of Silence” their first No. 1 hit. 

It plays on. As does versatile organist Benjamin Kolodziej, who is still performing his own “sounds to silents.” It’s Kolodziej’s tribute to what long ago was standard practice before becoming an all but lost art.

Kolodziej’s latest endeavor also is in tune with what’s become an annual January tradition at St. John’s Episcopal Church in East Dallas, where he has been the organist and choirmaster since 2017. It will be the first time he’s accompanied “The Cameraman,” a 1928 Buster Keaton comedy and Keaton’s last classic before talkies took over. 

Show time is at 6 p.m. on January 19 in the church’s parish hall (848 Harter Road). Admission is free and refreshments will be available.

“I try to re-create the sounds people would have heard in a nice movie theater in the ’20s,” Kolodziej says from his office at St. John’s. “The best compliment I can get is for people to say they totally forgot about the music because they were so engaged in the movie. Well, that’s what I’m supposed to do. You’re not listening to how clever I am.”

Kolodziej, 48, is renowned far beyond his silent film side job. He has an undergraduate degree in organ performance and graduate degrees in sacred music and theology from Southern Methodist University. His solo organ concerts have traveled the world from Norway to Switzerland to Germany to the United Kingdom. Stateside venues include St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City and the Washington National Cathedral. He’s also the organist at SMU’s Perkins Chapel, where he averages 100 wedding performances annually.

One would assume that the Richardson, Texas native comes from a musical family.

“Not really,” Kolodziej says. His father was a nautical engineer, and his mother has a master’s degree in library science. His sister, however, plays the trumpet and piano. So, there’s that.

Kolodziej’s first brush with music lessons did not go well. While he was in fifth grade, a piano teacher told his parents that they were “wasting their money” on lessons. Kolodziej recalls that he readily agreed with that assessment.

But as a seventh grader at Faith Lutheran School in Plano, he became entranced by the full-bodied sounds of an organ during chapel services. “And then I got excited. It was both color and sound. So, I started taking lessons. It was a roundabout way to get where I am today.”

Happenstance also put him in sync with silent movies. In 2010, while touring with a singing group in Oslo, Norway, a church organist wondered whether he might want to try his hand at composing music for a wordless film. “I thought, ‘That sounds like a challenge. I would love to do that.’” Kolodziej recalls.

He selected a movie he had seen before, a 1920 Swedish comedy-drama titled “The Parson’s Widow.” Kolodziej provided accompaniment on a 1925 orchestral organ and “It was a success!” he exclaims. “They loved it.”

He has since settled on Keaton and Harold Lloyd as his two favorite silent film stars, generally alternating between the two. Kolodziej also has occasionally scored serious dramas, ranging from “Joan of Arc” — “Never again” — to “The Phantom of the Opera.” But he’s found that comedies play best, with Keaton’s “The General” his go-to classic. His accompaniments “change every time,” he says. “There are no two that are alike.”

His latest choice, “The Cameraman,” was filmed entirely in New York, with Keaton’s hapless tintype photographer quickly falling in love and then prat-falling his way through venues ranging from Yankee Stadium to an indoor swimming pool to Chinatown.

Kolodziej composes some main themes for whatever film he chooses and “then I weave it all together with my own improvisations.” He also adds some sound effects and plays without stop. “My fingers don’t get tired at all,” but he does allow himself to use a cushioned chair. His own in-home theater organ will be transported to St. John’s for the occasion. And Kolodziej will be costumed in a cape and top hat.

“The difficult thing,” he says, “whether it’s kids or adults, is getting them to try a silent movie for the first time. They have a conception that they’re very antiquated and stilted. But they’re not. I really respond when people laugh.”

Oddly or not, Kolodziej has yet to score a film by the most famous silent comedian of all — Charlie Chaplin.

“He wasn’t that nice of a guy,” Kolodziej says. “So, I’ve never been drawn to him.” He pauses. “I really should do one, though. I really should.”

Sounds good.