SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. –– The Arthur Zankel Music Center at Skidmore College will welcome legendary guitarist Marc Ribot for a live accompaniment to Charlie Chaplin’s 1921 silent film “The Kid” at 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28. Ribot’s delicate and, at times, haunting solo guitar score contemporizes Chaplin’s work as a relevant story about our era’s economic and social conditions. Ribot will also perform a short solo set before the film.

Tickets go on sale to the public at 10 a.m. Friday, April 19.

Chaplin’s first full-length feature, “The Kid,” remains an expressive masterwork of silent cinema. In it, Chaplin stars as his lovable Tramp character, this time raising an orphan (a remarkable young Jackie Coogan) he has rescued from the streets. Chaplin and Coogan make a miraculous pair in this nimble marriage of sentiment and slapstick, a film that is, as its opening title card states, “a picture with a smile — and perhaps, a tear.” Today, where issues of inequality and empathy persist, the film serves as a poignant reminder of the importance of caring for the less fortunate and the power of human connection to overcoming adversity.

Ribot’s score was commissioned by the New York Guitar Festival and premiered in 2010 at Merkin Hall. In an interview with Flavorpill, Ribot said, “I did not use Charlie Chaplin’s score as a reference. I admire his score greatly, and his writing greatly, but I did not want to use that as a reference because my interest in this, as with everything else, comes from doing a particular reading. And my particular reading of this film is as a contemporary film.”

Marc Ribot, who the New York Times describes as “a deceptively articulate artist who uses inarticulateness as an expressive device,” has released over 20 albums under his own name over a 30-year career, exploring everything from the pioneering jazz of Albert Ayler to the Cuban music of Arsenio Rodríguez. His solo release, “Silent Movies” (Pi Recordings), has been described as a “down-in-mouth-near masterpiece” by the Village Voice, has landed on several “best of” lists, including the LA Times’, and earned critical praise across the board. Rolling Stone points out that “Guitarist Marc Ribot helped Tom Waits refine a new, weird Americana on 1985’s ‘Rain Dogs,’ and since then, he’s become the go-to guitar guy for all kinds of roots-music adventurers: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Elvis Costello, John Mellencamp.” He has also recorded with Neko Case, Diana Krall, Solomon Burke, John Lurie’s Lounge Lizards, Marianne Faithful, Allen Toussaint, Medeski Martin & Wood, Caetono Veloso, Susana Baca, Norah Jones, The Black Keys, and many others. Ribot works regularly with Grammy Award-winning producer T Bone Burnett and New York composer John Zorn.

The event is presented by the Arthur Zankel Music Center with the generous support of Jimmy Zankel ’92 and the Zankel Music Fund. Tickets are available to the general public for $20 and at $5 for the Skidmore College community (students, faculty, staff, and alumni). Purchase online or call the box office at 518-580-5321 between 1 and 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. For more information, contact Zankel Music Center Director Zhenelle LeBel at [email protected].

Founded in 1903, Skidmore College is a highly selective private, coeducational liberal arts college of about 2,700 students. Skidmore is consistently named one of the “Best National Liberal Arts Colleges” by U.S. News and World Report and has recently been recognized as one of “America’s Most Entrepreneurial Colleges” by Forbes, a “Top College Value” by Kiplinger and one of “The Best 389 Colleges” by The Princeton Review. Travel and Leisure has also called Saratoga Springs, home to Skidmore’s campus, one of “America’s Best College Towns.”