From the 2025 Central PA Ragtime Festival

The 16th Central Pennsylvania Ragtime and American Music Festival took place, as usual, at several venues in Huntingdon County on September 18-21. While most events occur in the adjoining small towns of Orbisonia and Rockhill Furnace, the kickoff concert is held in Huntingdon, the county seat, on Thursday evening at a former church that is now the home of the Huntingdon County Arts Council. This attractive venue also houses art and related exhibits.

A new venue was added this year: the Southern Huntingdon County High School, located between Rockhill and Three Springs. The Friday night silent movie, Saturday morning symposium and Saturday and Sunday concerts were held there. A change was made in the location of Friday’s concerts: these were held at the Orbisonia United Methodist Church instead of the Presbyterian Church a few blocks away that had been used in previous years.

The UMC has several advantages over its predecessor: it is handicapped-accessible, has more parking, and is air-conditioned (which was welcome on this unseasonably warm weekend). But the sanctuary floor is not sloped, so people sitting toward the back don’t get quite as good a view of the front where the piano was located. There is a raised altar but using it would hamper sightlines for the musicians if the piano was used, which happened in every set.

Eleven musicians, including festival director Andrew Greene, performed, plus a flute/bassoon duo from State College called Fair Winds II. They played a 20-minute set to open Thursday’s concert that consisted mostly of Scott Joplin rags. Their repertoire includes classical, popular and folk music. The festival musicians were pianists Richard Dowling, Andrew Greene, Frederick Hodges, Charlie Judkins and Bryan Wright. Supplementing them were drummer/washboardist Steve Torrico, reedman Dan Levinson, vocalist/banjoist/washboardist Miss Maybell (Lauren Sansaricq), banjoist /guitarist /cornetist T. J. Muller, bassist Brian Nalepka and violinist Andy Stein. The latter two, longtime veterans of the New York jazz scene, plus Miss Maybell and Charlie, who had been scheduled in 2023 but had to cancel due to Covid, were making the CPRAMF debut. No weak links in this lineup.

Each morning there were 30-minute sets featuring the festival’s pianists on the platform of the East Broad Top Railroad, a narrow gauge line that operated from 1872 to 1956 hauling coal and timber from nearby mines and forests. It is now a tourist railroad running several 1-hour trips a day to a picnic grove a few miles north of town using a coal-fueled steam engine. Those who signed up for the Saturday dinner train ate their meal at this location. I attended about half of the platform sets, which were open to the public. Morning train patrons got a bonus with these free sets, and most of the non-pianists played on the 10:30 am train, moving from car to car. The platform piano, of unknown provenance, got mixed reviews from those who played it.

Andrew Greene is the Director of Sales for the EBT after having been a volunteer for many years, spending many weekends traveling from his home in Maryland. He moved to this area three years ago to become an employee of the railroad. If you have further interest in the line’s history, the website is eastbroadtop.com.

There were two 75 to 90-minute afternoon concerts on Friday and Saturday afternoons. The latter concert on Friday ended only an hour before the evening program—silent movies—were to begin at the high school, three miles away. This didn’t allow much time for dinner, and by the time the movies ended—around 9:15—all of the few local restaurants were closed. I felt the two concerts should have been combined into one, with an intermission, that could have avoided this crunch. But that would have meant selling tickets for one concert instead of two, thus reducing revenue, and I did notice that some people attended one concert but not both. Also, the concerts had different themes. So perhaps the movies could have started a half hour later or the concerts a half hour earlier, with a shorter break between them. I hope that will be the practice next year.

Friday’s concert themes were “Friday Follies” and “Classic Ragtime.” Each band, whose members varied depending upon who was leading, played three numbers. The pianists also had their own sets but sometimes there were duos and some also appeared in one or more of the bands. Saturday concert themes were “Syncopated Saturday Sampler” and “Saturday Serenade.” While each concert may have nominally had a different theme or title, I did not notice much difference in the music that was played at each. But it was all well done.

The movies were accompanied on piano by Andrew and Frederick. Andrew had the shorter (30 minutes) one—“Never Weaken” (1921) with Harold Lloyd—while Frederick accompanied “Go West” starring Buster Keaton from 1925. Frederick created the score for his movie, as apparently none was provided when the movie was made.

In addition to the organized concerts, organist Wallace Venable gave two half-hour performances on an antique street organ at the station platform on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, but I and many other s were attending the concerts during that time and missed these free performances.

The finale concert on Sunday, performed before a disappointingly small crowd of about 30, featured three-song sets for each band or pianist, followed by an all-hands-on-deck rendition of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” as an encore. The three pianists who did not play on that number pranced arm-in-arm across the stage, bringing down the curtain on another very enjoyable festival.

While it’s unfortunate that this festival has limited opportunities to grow because of its location and the dearth of nearby lodging, there is an upside: the intimacy between the musicians and the audience. But its ties to the local area have strengthened, which should help sustain it financially.

The dates for 2026 were announced: September 10-13. Book your lodging now if you have any thought of attending.