FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2026 | DOORS AT 5:30 PM, PROGRAM AT 6:00PM
Tickets are $12.50 for Members or $25 for General Public
FIRST FRIDAY | Down to the Sea in Ships
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2026 | DOORS AT 5:30 PM, PROGRAM AT 6:00PM
Experience the film just as audiences did in the silent era—with live music.
Down to the Sea in Ships (1922), directed by Elmer Clifton and filmed in New Bedford, is a full-length silent feature presented in the Harbor View Gallery at the Whaling Museum with a live musical score performed on grand piano by Grammy-nominated concert pianist Dr. Jennifer A. Maxwell.
About the Film
A major hit in its day, Down to the Sea in Ships is both a dramatic whaling story and an extraordinary record of local maritime history. The film includes the only legally filmed whale hunt in cinema history and features semi-documentary footage of whalers at work, shot on historic New Bedford–area locations such as the Quaker Meeting House, Seamen’s Bethel, and the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan, now on view at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. Title cards incorporate quotations from Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and Alexander Starbuck’s History of the American Whale Fishery. Its opening credits praise the courage of cameramen A. G. Penrod and Paul H. Allen, who filmed whaling scenes from small boats at great personal risk. The film is also notable for introducing flapper-era icon Clara Bow in her screen debut.
About the Score
Drawing from archival material associated with the film’s 1922 New Bedford premiere as well as her own original compositions, Maxwell created musical themes for each character and type of action—hero and villain motifs, love themes, whaling passages, and more. She incorporates recognizable vintage tunes of the era, blending them with original music to evoke the period. Every musical cue is precisely timed to the corresponding scene, composed to transition seamlessly between keys, and designed to reinforce the narrative and unify the story in the absence of dialogue. The result is a score that is richly attuned to the film and performed dynamically in real time.
Down to the Sea in Ships is deeply rooted in New England history and offers a family-friendly experience. Enjoy a classic silent film and a live piano concert in one unforgettable evening.
Doors open at 5:30 PM with light bites and a cash bar in the Harbor View Gallery (Upper Level), offering limited cabaret-style seating and additional rows of chairs for film viewing. Remarks and the screening will begin promptly at 6:00 PM, and the event concludes at 8:00 PM.
DR. JENNIFER A. MAXWELL
PIANIST / EDUCATOR / SCHOLAR
American pianist Dr. Jennifer A. Maxwell has earned acclaim for her versatility as a performer, educator, and scholar. A 2016 and 2018 Grammy Award nominee, she has performed thousands of concerts of solo and chamber repertoire across the country, been featured in television and radio interviews, written a film score, and judged competitions.
Maxwell has presented performances at the Providence Veterans Memorial Auditorium, Lyman Allyn Museum, New Bedford Whaling Museum, Nantucket Whaling Museum, Nantucket Atheneum, Narrows Center for the Arts, Thacher Hall, Boston University, Jamestown Piano Association, Rhode Island College, Music in the Loft Series, Steinway of Chicago, Mostly Music Concert Series, CUBE Chicago Contemporary Music Series, Schubertiade Chicago, University of Wisconsin, University of Illinois, Music Institute of Chicago, and PianoForte Great Pianists Series, among others; performed concerti with the Southern Illinois Symphony and University of Chicago Symphony; been featured on Live From WFMT Chicago Classical Radio; and served as pianist for the National Association for Music Education convention.
Recent activities include solo recitals of Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, and Adès; an interview/performance on National Public Radio; The Red Violin program with Red Mendelssohn Stradivarius owner Elizabeth Pitcairn; a program of music by women composers; Stravinsky’s virtuosic Petrouchka on the Nantucket Arts Council Celebrity Series with duo partner Dr. Svetlana Belsky; Beethoven in Havana, a new tango by Joachim Horsley adapted as a piano concerto; a popular lecture-recital on the history of the piano and its repertoire; and repeat shows of her archival/original score for the 1922 classic silent film Down to the Sea in Ships. She has also performed on period instruments, presenting an annual fortepiano recital at the historic Whitehall Mansion. Maxwell is featured in Jay Craven’s 2022 film Martin Eden.
Maxwell has been a professor at Roger Williams University and the University of Rhode Island, and she is faculty emerita at Nantucket Music Center. Previously she held positions at the University of Chicago, Louisville Orchestra, Kentucky Center for the Arts, and University of Louisville. Maxwell earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Boston University, where she studied with the legendary Anthony di Bonaventura and was granted a dissertation scholarship to research and write Tracing a Lineage of the Mazurka Genre: Influences of Szymanowski and Chopin on the Mazurkas of Thomas Adès.
Maxwell is an auditor for the Fall River CPA firm Hague, Sahady & Co.
First Fridays is proudly sponsored by:
