The Spectre: A Legend of Old New England, 1925

Celebrate Halloween with a good, old-fashioned ghost story. Superstition and fear ran rampant in seventeenth-century New England, causing many people to conjure up visions of spectres—which they believed could only be exorcised with certain rites. This uncanny short, filmed partially in the period rooms of The Met’s American Wing, recounts a young couple’s struggle with a malign apparition intent on stealing their baby. Featuring a spectacularly spooky new score composed and performed by Rob Schwimmer.

Rob Schwimmer is a composer-pianist, thereminist (former co-director of The NY Theremin Society), and Haken Continuum player who has performed and recorded throughout the world. His new album “Heart of Hearing” was rated #4 in Slate Magazine’s “Best Jazz of 2019,” which called him “...a mesmerizing pianist of astonishing drama, wit, and virtuosity.” Schwimmer is the thereminist for the Mark Morris/ Ethan Iverson dance piece “Pepperland.” He contributed Haken Continuum to Esperanza Spalding’s 2019 Grammy-nominated album “12 Little Spells,” and has worked with Simon and Garfunkel, Wayne Shorter, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Stevie Wonder, Bobby McFerrin, Willie Nelson, Paul Simon, Gotye, Boston Pops, Paul Bley, The Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Annette Peacock, Trey Anastasio, Laurie Anderson, T-Bone Walker, The Klezmatics, The Roches, The Everly Brothers, Sammy Davis Jr., and many others.

Read more about Rob and his work at http://www.robschwimmer.com

Learn about the American Wing’s period rooms here: https://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/curatorial-departments/the-american-wing/period-rooms

As part of The Met’s 150th anniversary in 2020, each month we will release three to four films from the Museum’s extensive moving-image archive, which comprises over 1,500 films, both made and collected by the Museum, from the 1920s onward. This includes rarely seen artist profiles and documentaries, as well as process films about art-making techniques and behind-the-scenes footage of the Museum.

New films every week: https://www.metmuseum.org/150/from-the-vaults

Subscribe for new content from The Met: https://www.youtube.com/user/metmuseum?sub_confirmation=1

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