New York Guitar Festival: Redhooker,
My Brightest Diamond
& Keller Williams

Silent Films/Live Guitars: Groundbreaking guitarists premiere original film scores for silent films
by Buster Keaton.

Keller Williams premieres a score to Buster Keaton’s One Week (1920), a short comedy about newlyweds who receive a build-it-yourself house that can supposedly be built in one week. "In my two decades of making music, I'm not sure that I've ever felt quite so challenged and inspired," says Williams. "It's been exciting, and a little scary, to embark on such a unique project. I hope the audience feels that energy during the performance."

Since he first appeared on the scene in the early ’90s, Williams, music's "mad scientist," has defined the term independent artist. And his 16 recordings tell only half the story. He built his reputation initially on his engaging live solo performances, no two of which are ever alike, and which quickly became the stuff of legend. Today he most often performs as a one-man band, accompanying himself on an acoustic guitar connected to a Gibson Echoplex delay system that allows him to simulate a full band.

My Brightest Diamond (Shara Worden), hailed for her mystical voice and mythic storytelling, premieres a score to Buster Keaton’s Balloonatic (1923), which chronicles a young man’s misadventures with a hot air balloon and a young outdoorswoman. “I’ve always had a romantic fascination with hot air balloons,” says Worden. “They exemplify freedom and lightness of being to me. I am enchanted by Buster Keaton’s humor, darkness, lightness, romance and sorrow. This will be a delight to score and give me the opportunity to think about dreams and about believing in the impossible.”

Redhooker is a "dreamy mixed consort" (New York Times) led by the classically-trained guitarist Stephen Griesgraber. He will be joined by band members Maxim Moston, Ben Lively and Peter Hess in the performance of a collaboratively composed score for guitar, violins, bass clarinet and electronics for Buster Keaton's The Neighbors (1920), a comedy about young lovers and a family feud.