Popular organist and composer Jeff Weiler has appeared throughout North America performing his own musical scores at screenings of great movies of the silent era. Film critic Roger Ebert said in a Chicago Sun Times review, Weiler "created a film experience in which talking and sounds were not missed, and not necessary, because all of the emotions are in the images and the music."Weiler has now composed some 32 film scores ranging from Lon Chaney's popular "The Phantom of the Opera," to all the extant Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Rudolph Valentino classics, the epic film, "Wings," to one of the last silent films ever released, Gloria Swanson's "Queen Kelly." He was seated at the console of the Mighty Wurlitzer for the grand reopening of the famous Chicago Theatre, was featured at the centennial celebration of Symphony Hall, Boston, the Calgary Organ Festival, and the prestigious Gilmore Keyboard Festival. Other appearances have taken him to such places as the Paramount Theatre, Oakland, California, Carnegie Hall Cinema in New York, the Ohio Theatre in Columbus, Tampa Theatre, Detroit Institute of the Arts, Merrill Auditorium in Portland, Maine, and the Coleman Theatre in Miami, Oklahoma. Although the performance venues can vary widely from restored movie palaces, concert halls, university campuses, to churches, Jeff Weiler continues to develop a new audience for early cinema, often introducing silent films where they have not been seen (or heard) since they were new.A graduate of Northwestern University with a Master of Music degree, Jeff studied silent film scoring in New York with the late Lee Erwin, legendary theatre organist and composer. In keeping with Mr. Erwin's tradition, Weiler composes new music for vintage films. Weiler feels that the music "must subtlety reinforce and comment upon screen action without drawing attention to itself". Therefore, he avoids any hint of parody or the use of familiar tunes in his film scoring. In fact, he takes particular pleasure in the compliment often received from audience members, "After a few minutes, I forgot you were even playing!" Jeff has authored articles and reviews that have appeared in Theatre Organ, The Diapason, The American Organist, Choir and Organ and In League. He reconstructed and edited the 800-page book, The Wurlitzer Pipe Organ:  An Illustrated History, published by the American Theatre Organ Society, and is editor of The Journal of American Organbuilding and Theatre Organ. His commentaries on pipe organ related subjects have appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and over National Public Radio. Weiler is regularly asked to lecture on pipe organ restoration and the history of organbuilding, and has been retained as consultant and project manager by numerous churches, universities, and symphony orchestras to survey, plan and oversee pipe organ projects. He designed and supervised the installation of the new organ for the Chicago Symphony where he remains as organ curator, the restoration of the 100 rank Jacksonville Symphony organ, and assisted with initial planning and fundraising for the Cleveland Orchestra’s organ project. Weiler has served multiple terms as an officer of both the American Theatre Organ Society and American Institute of Organbuilders along with maintaining a national practice as an organ voicer, tonal finisher, and restorer. Presently Jeff is restoring a completely original three-manual, fifteen rank Wurlitzer organ originally installed in the Howard/Paramount Theatre, Atlanta.  As a passionate restoration practitioner, there will be no changes or additions.When not concertizing or otherwise engaged in organ activities, Jeff can be found biking, Scuba diving, or at home in the South Loop of Chicago, surrounded by his collection of antiquarian books, fountain pens, film, theatrical projection equipment, a great Steinway piano, and an American Staffordshire Terrier named Dixie.

06/06