Home

[Home] [Sound Clips] [Events] [Recordings] [Biography] [Backstage] [Links]

Backstage (and onstage)

Scroll down to view an assortment of candid photos from Paragon's 24 year concert career. We will add others from our scrapbooks as time permits.

Since 1986 the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra has performed 1,102 concerts in 48 U.S. states, Canada, and several European countries. These have taken place in 793 different venues, including over 300 of America's surviving historic theaters - the Orchestra's "natural habitat."

PRO honoring inventor Thomas Edison with special concert at his mansion in Orange, NJ (June 5, 2010). Photo courtesy U.S. National Park Service.

Rick Benjamin shows an audience his conducting baton, which was once owned by John Philip Sousa (West Milton, Pennsylvania, August 2009).

Piccolo duet! Soloists Leslie Cullen (L) and Kerrin Kampa (R) render John Cox's 1889 "The Merry Birds." (West Milton, Pennsylvania, August 2009).

Soprano Bernadette Boerckel, star of PRO's Joe Jordan and George M. Cohan recordings, makes a live appearance singing Scott Joplin's "Pine Apple Rag Song." (West Milton, Pennsylvania, August 2009).

Rick Benjamin (kneeling, right) and the leads of the Opera Memphis production of the opera Scott Joplin and Treemonisha. Mr. Benjamin orchestrated and conducted this production, which starred Anita Johnson and Jonathan Tuzo (Memphis, Tennessee, January 2009).

PRO recording the new George M. Cohan CD at the American Academy of Arts & Letters (New York City, June 2008).

PRO in the 'pit,' playing the original score for Douglas Fairbanks' 1920 silent film THE MARK OF ZORRO (Norwich, NY 2008).

Mr. B rehearsing PRO in Minnesota Orchestra Hall for one of the two PRO concerts presented there by the Minnesota Orchestra (Minneapolis, 2006).

The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra's own acclaimed production of Scott Joplin's 1911 opera TREEMONISHA, featuring a new reconstruction of the score by Rick Benjamin (Winston-Salem, NC 2005).

...still nice to see the name in lights. One of our favorite 1920s movie "palaces" - Akron's Civic Theatre (2006).

New York Debut! PRO at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. The New York Times' glowing review of this concert was a huge career boost. (March, 1988).

Rick Benjamin risks a time/space continuum rift by using a microphone. (Madison, Wisconsin, 1995)

Rick uses his period-correct megaphone. What is he telling the audience? "TO THE LIFE BOATS!" perhaps? (Wichita, Kansas, 2008. Photo credit: Hugh Pickens).

"Places for top of show!" - ace clarinetist Dave Griffiths readies for action (Ravinia Festival, August 2000).

Rick and the Orchestra recording "The Whistler & His Dog" CD in RCA's Studio "A". This recording would later become famous as the "soundtrack" of Disney's Main Street, U.S.A. (New York, 1987).

	Rick Benjamin planning an upcoming concert in his c.1900 parlor. The piano is a fine 1872 Chickering, which he purchased in a Pennsylvania junk shop for $300. (2004)

	Model T delivery: PRO's instruments "arrive" in this cover photo for the Orchestra's CD Knock Out Drops. The auto is Dr. J. Stanley Stratton's award-winning 1910 Ford; the Orchestra's original 1910 Ludwig & Ludwig drum set is finally seen too. This historic instrument has been heard on all PRO's recordings and concerts since 1990. (Chambersburg Pennsylvania, 1995)

	The view from the drummer's seat in the bandstand at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC (1989).

	PRO veteran Rich Gradone playing his 1903 Distin "A" cornet (Waterloo Festival, New Jersey, 1990).

Eureka! Rick Benjamin recovers the Capitol Theatre orchestra library - 26 large wooden crates stuffed with silent film scores - from a dusty basement (Washington, D.C.,1992).

Drummer Mike Benedict underscores silent film pratfalls (The Brucknerhaus, Austria, 1997).

The glamor of air travel! PRO enjoying the steerage section as usual. An irate portly civilian attempts to escape via the center aisle (Vancouver, B.C., 2002).

The name in lights - a welcome sign on the road (Cedar Rapids, Iowa 1999).

PRO's 2007 official portrait. Minus a couple of members who couldn't make the shoot. We did it anyway! And Jimmy, where's your #%!@ coat!

Rick Benjamin & Leslie Cullen: Proprietors of the Orchestra.

[Home] [Sound Clips] [Events] [Recordings] [History] [Backstage] [Links]

RICK BENJAMIN'S PARAGON RAGTIME ORCHESTRA
P.O. Box 247 - Lewisburg - Pennsylvania 17837 U.S.A.
email: info@paragonragtime.com
telephone: (570) 524-9511

Rick Benjamin's Paragon Ragtime Orchestra is managed by New World Classics:
860-870-1583  fax: 860-870-1585  email: kl@newworldclassics.com

This document and all associated graphics copyright ©1998-2010 Paragon Ragtime Orchestra; all rights reserved.