Rick Benjamin uses his Paragon Ragtime Orchestra to keep historic American music alive.
The group is headed for Galesburg’s Orpheum Theatre this Friday for a performance that is the latest installation of the Red Carpet Series.
The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra tours the country with 12 members, consisting of five strings, two woodwinds, three brass and drums and piano.
This was a standard musical set up of the time that the Orpheum opened 100 years ago.
They’ve been around for 30 years and are dedicated to preserving American music circa turn of the 20th century.
All year long they collect rare and lost musical scores and presenting the findings in recordings and concerts.
The orchestra got its start in 1986 when Benjamin was a student at the Juliard music conservatory.
Benjamin says they perform selections from hundreds of American composer, many “one-off” manuscripts.
“But even better than that, just the quality of the music, the scoring and how it’s crafted is remarkable,” Benjamin says. “And that all becomes very apparent when you listen to it.”
Many people have heard the Paragon Orchestra before, perhaps even if they don’t realize it.
They record the music that’s played on Main Street USA in the Disney theme parks around the world.
