Peacherine Ragtime Orchestra will take listeners back in time this Sunday afternoon (December 5) at the Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Arnold. The orchestra will perform a concert featuring musical scores from the early 1900's.

The eleven-piece orchestra will be conducted by its founder, Arnold's own Andrew Greene, a 2009 graduate of Broadneck High School who has taken his love of ragtime to college. Upon arriving at the University of Maryland in College Park, where he's currently pursuing an Engineering degree, he sent out emails recruiting musicians who enjoyed ragtime, and now the group finds itself increasingly playing gigs, locally and out of state. A CD is in the works as well.

Greene serves as director of the Peacherine Ragtime Orchestra, which he says is "the United State's only college-age ragtime orchestra dedicated to recreating the sounds of orchestras from 1880 to 1928."

"One of the things that orchestras like the Peacherine Ragtime Orchestra did back in the early part of the 1900s was to underscore motion pictures. There were somewhere around 9,000 orchestras back then that accompanied silent films on a regular basis, and this is something that Peacherine wants to recreate as well," says Greene. "A lot of young people really take to this music because it's completely different, a complete 180 from what they're used to hearing."

Ragtime's appeal to the younger generation is evidenced by Peacherine's members, whose average is 20. Greene was quite young when he caught ragtime fever. "I got into it when I was 12 or 13," he recalls. "The rhythms and syncopations just clicked with me."

The concert will feature their accompaniment to a projection of the brief, silent film "Cops," which stars Buster Keaton and features slapstick comedy and a well-known chase scene, will hearken back to the movie-going experience of the 1920's.

The audience will also be treated to "Hallelujah Trombone," a ragtime version of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, "Hot Chocolate Rag," and a Christmas medley from 1924 that Greene says, "features some recognizable tunes and some obscure ones. It's going to be especially unique because the audience will hear pieces not played live in this area since the 1920's."

"This eighteen-minute film has not shown with a period correct orchestra in this area since it was released," Greene explains, "so we're recreating history."

What: Peacherine Ragtime Orchestra Concert and Silent Film
Where: Gloria Dei Lutheran Church
461 College Parkway
Arnold, MD 21012
410-544-3799
When: 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 5
Cost: Adults $10, $5 for students
Contact: Andrew Greene, Director, Peacherine Ragtime Orchestra
443-694-4116

agreene@peacherineragtime.com