Accompanying silent films at Atlas Performing Arts Center.
Photo Credit ©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 Asian Art, and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, in Europe, South America, and Australia. He has collaborated with visual artists and digital animators in programs at the National Gallery of Art and other venues, including painting, films and animations by Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, René Clair, Sharon Louden, Micheline Klagsbrun, David Brody, Jodie Mack, and many others.

One of America’s foremost silent film musicians, he has performed across the United States, Europe, and South America. He is Resident Film Accompanist at the National Gallery of Art and a resident accompanist at the Library of Congress as well as Keyboard Artist for the Cantate Chamber Singers. He has performed silent film scores at the Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, Italy, Lincoln Center in New York City, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, the Sala Cecelia Meireles in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Harvard Film Archive, UCLA Film and Television Archive, and festivals such as Cinefest, Slapsticon, Orphans, and the Library of Congress’ Mostly Lost workshops. Simpson also conceived and co-founded Atlas Performing Arts Center’s Sounds of Silence Silent Film Series, for which he is curator and resident musician.

Andrew Simpson’s chamber, vocal, choral, and silent film music has been recorded on the Naxos, Albany, Fleur de Son Classics, Capstone, Athena, and other labels. His silent film scores have been broadcast on the Turner Classic Movies Channel, and more than fifty of his silent film orchestral, chamber, piano, and theater organ scores are available on DVD/Blu-Ray through Kino-Lorber, Flicker Alley, Eureka Video, Undercrank Productions, and others.

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.

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