Go West is a 1925 Western Comedy Silent Film produced by, and starring, Buster Keaton with live piano accompaniment by Andrew E. Simpson. Keaton portrays Friendless, in inept Midwestern youth, who travels west aboard a freight train to try to make his fortune. Once there, he tries his hand at bronco-busting, cattle wrangling and dairy farming, forming an unusual bond with a cow named “Brown Eyes.” Eventually he finds himself leading a herd of cattle through Los Angeles as he rescues Brown Eyes from the slaughterhouse. Much of the movie was shot on location near Kingman, Ariz. in the summer of 1925 with temperatures approaching 120 degrees.

Chief Curator Andrew Patrick Nelson will introduce the film and lead a post-screening discussion with the audience.

Photo by Sarah O’ Halloran

Andrew Earle Simpson is an acclaimed composer of opera, silent film, orchestral, chamber, choral, dance, and vocal music based in Washington, DC. His musical works make multi-faceted, intimate connections with literature, visual art, and film, reflecting his own interest in linking music with the wider world, an approach which he calls “humanistic music.”

His concert and theatrical works have been performed at such venues as Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Music Center at Strathmore, National Gallery of Art, Library of Congress, Smithsonian Museums of American Art, American History and Freer-Sackler Gallery, and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

One of America’s foremost silent film accompaniments, he has performed across the United States, Europe, and South America. Including the Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, Italy, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Sala Cecelia Meireles in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Cinema Trevi in Rome, Italy, Harvard Film Archive, and UCLA Film and Television Archive. Resident Film Accompanist at the National Gallery of Art and a regularly featured accompanist at the Library of Congress’ Mt. Pony Theater in Culpeper, VA, Simpson is also curator and resident musician for DC’s Atlas Performing Arts Center’s Silent Film Series, starting its fifth season in 2020-21.

Simpson’s instrumental chamber, choral, and silent film music is recorded on Naxos, Albany, Capstone, Fleur de Son Classics, Athena, and other labels. His silent film scores have been broadcast on the Turner Classic Movies Channel, and more than fifty scores for piano solo, theater organ, and chamber ensemble appear on DVD with Kino-Lorber, Flicker Alley, Olive Films, Undercrank Productions, and All Day Entertainment.

Andrew Earle Simpson is ordinary (full) professor and founder/director of the Master of Music, Stage Music Emphasis Composition program at the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.

NOTE: This is a Silent Film with a LIVE Piano.

Rating: Not Rated

Length: 1h 23m

Pricing:
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FREE with Museum Admission
$10 for program attendance only (does not include further admittance to the museum/galleries)