The Phantom of the Opera
Original silent film with live organ accompaniment
October 26, 2026 at 2:00:00 AM
Tickets on sale this August.
The St. James Music Series opens the season with Rupert Julian's 1925 silent-film classic The Phantom of the Opera, projected on the silver screen with live improvised organ accompaniment by Garrett F. Martin. Lon Chaney's legendary performance as the Phantom and Mary Philbin's Christine remain among the defining images of early Hollywood horror. In the resonant acoustic of St. James by-the-Sea, the Rosales/Parsons pipe organ becomes the film's living soundtrack, supplying color, menace, romance, and theatrical thunder in real time. This is a cinema-night event with real musical risk: no canned score, no safety net, just organ, imagination, and a very large shadow in the opera house.
About the Artists
Garrett F. Martin serves as Organist and Director of Music Ministries at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Buffalo, New York, where he oversees choirs, worship music, visiting artists, and the care of Westminster's Aeolian-Skinner organs and Steinway pianos. He plans worship and liturgy, coordinates the Westminster Presents series, and conducts and performs for worship and special services. His background includes degrees from Carson-Newman University, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Texas at Austin, previous church positions in Tennessee, Florida, and Texas, and artistic leadership with the Buffalo Gay Men's Chorus. For this silent-film program, Martin brings the particular gifts of a church musician to the movie house: long-form pacing, instinctive registration, and the ability to turn a single organ into a full theatrical cast.