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Silents Are Golden For Famed Organist

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By PAUL CATALA pcatala@mediageneral.com

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 25, 2009

TAMPA - From beneath the stage she emerges; a diminutive, demure figure with the ability to turn a silent movie into an auditory transformation of the senses.
Rosa Rio helps bring the otherwise soundless presentations to life at the historic Tampa Theatre, eliciting emotions as accompanist on the 1,400-pipe Mighty Wurlitzer Theatre Organ.

Through her fingers, Rio has established movie moods for theater and radio audiences from New York City to New Orleans to Tampa for more than nine decades. At age 106, she still charms audiences from the Tampa Bay area, where she and her husband, Bill Yeoman, have lived since 1995.

Most recently at the Tampa Theatre, Rio accompanied "The Electric House," a slapstick comedy featuring Buster Keaton. And during an interview at her home in Sun City Center, she played songs on one of two organs in her living room.

"I just never got over the glee of when I heard the first theater organ. I still have that feeling; it's still a part of me," she said.

Although the ability to keep up the performance pace of her younger years has waned, Rio said she still strives to play as much as possible. For 13 years the Tampa Theatre has provided that opportunity.

A former student of noted composer, music theorist and composition teacher Joseph Schillinger, Rio plays at the Tampa Theatre three or four times a year, bringing expertise honed through study and practice with some of the world's best musicians.

"He Schillinger was real exact and made all these music theory graphs, but he said if you don't have feeling when you play, no matter what, the music will be as cold as a piece of ice," she said.

Rios' feelings are conveyed successfully to audiences at Tampa Theatre, who have seen and heard her play along with classic films.

Tara Schroeder, director of programming at the theater on downtown's Franklin Street, said Rio has played for more than 30 silent films since first appearing there in 1996.

Schroeder, who has worked at the theater for 16 years and in 2001 authored an article on Rio for "The Journal of the American Theater Organ Society," said audiences adore the centenarian.

"It's been magical watching Rosa mesmerize audiences all these years," he said. "Once I heard a young woman yell out from the balcony, 'You go, girl!' after Rosa told a funny story about bucking gender obstacles during her career.

"Every show ends with a long, standing ovation. And then she races out to the lobby to meet her fans and sign autographs."

Born in New Orleans, Rio began picking out melodies on the piano when she was 4 years old. By age 6 she could play chords. At 8 she began taking lessons, and by age 9 she was playing piano accompaniment for a silent movie in a New Orleans theater.

After high school, Rio's parents enrolled her at Oberlin College in Ohio, to prepare her for a career as a music teacher. While visiting an aunt in Cleveland, however, she saw a theater organ rise from a pit and decided to play rather than teach.

"I fell in love with the theater," she said. "I wanted to play the theater organ."

Rio went to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., where she studied silent film accompaniment and was a student of organist John Hammond, whom she eventually married.

After completing her instruction at Eastman, Rio took her first job as organ accompanist at a theatre in Syracuse, New York.

"I found out you really have to watch, as if you're doing a musical production," said Rio. "But once the talkies came in, it organ accompaniment was out."

From the movies, Rio went into radio, where she became a staff organist at NBC radio, accompanying performances on such shows as "The Shadow," "Lorenzo Jones," "My True Story" and "Deadline Drama."

From radio, Rio went to television, where she played on network series and soap operas, including "The Guiding Light' in the 1960s and 1970s.

By the 1980s she scored and accompanied on the Hammond organ about 375 silent films released on video, performed as a concert artist, arranged and taught music, and released records.

However, with the renaissance of classic movie theaters such as the Tampa Theater, demand for musical accompanists resurfaced.

Bob Baker, another Tampa Theatre organist, said Rio is the best theater organist in the South, if not the United States. He said her improvisational skills are unsurpassed.

"When she plays a silent film, she's got them all beat," said Baker, 61, who has been playing since he was 8 years old. "She was playing in an era I wish I could have been in."

Rio will accompany Buster Keaton's "The Playhouse" on piano and speak about accompaniment at 11 a.m., April 4, as part of "Music for Movies" at the Hillsborough Community College Ybor's "Festival of the Moving Image" in the Performing Arts Building. Cost is $5.

Reporter Paul Catala can be reached at (813) 865-1554.

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