Come enjoy a Sunday afternoon with silent film classics accompanied live by professional pianist Adam Swanson! The summer Silent Sundays program will be another Tribute to Buster Keaton! Adam has yet to screen Keaton’s feature film Sherlock Jr. for Durango audiences, and rounding out the program will be one of Keaton’s best-loved shorts, The Boat. All films will be accompanied with original period music LIVE on the DAC’s beautiful 9-foot grand piano. These events will be family friendly, so bring your kids and enjoy this fun and unique opportunity.
The Boat (Joseph M. Schenck Productions, 1921)
Starring Buster Keaton
The Boat is among the greatest highlights from Keaton’s huge catalogue of comedic shorts. Keaton builds his own homemade boat, the Damfino, but when he takes his family for a ride the results are disastrous. Advertisements of the period said, “They dusted out the best bunk in Mr. David Jones’ locker when Keaton kast off on his komedy kruise”!
Sherlock Jr. (Joseph M. Schenck Productions, 1924)
Starring Buster Keaton
A film projectionist longs to be a detective and puts his meagre skills to work when he is framed by a rival for stealing his girlfriend’s father’s pocket watch. Joe Keaton plays the father and the girlfriend is played by Kathryn McGuire. Sherlock Jr. becomes a film within a film in a very unusual and forward-thinking dream sequence!
Adam Swanson is one of the world’s foremost performers of vintage American popular music, including ragtime, early jazz, the Great American Songbook, and more. He holds a bachelor’s in classical piano and a master’s in musicology from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. Adam has been a featured performer and lecturer at ragtime and jazz festivals across the United States and abroad, and he is the only four-time winner of the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest. He made his New York debut in Carnegie Hall at the age of nineteen, where he performed with Michael Feinstein. Adam has performed at the Cinecon Classic Film Festival in Hollywood and the Kennedy Center, as well as in Hungary, Switzerland, Australia, and France. He has worked with such musicians as Toronto’s John Arpin, former rock star Ian Whitcomb, and legendary 1950s recording artist Johnny Maddox, who was one of Adam’s greatest influences. He lives in Durango, Colorado, where he frequently performs in the Diamond Belle Saloon at the Historic Strater Hotel. Adam is also the director of the Durango Ragtime and Early Jazz Festival. Visit Adam online: adamgswanson.com.
PROUDLY SPONSORED BY OUR FRIENDS AT:
Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad
durangotrain.com
Community Foundation Serving SW Colorado
swcommunityfoundation.org
Sunday, July 5, 2026
2:00pm (1:30 doors open)
