Joseph N. Rubin

FOunder, Executive Director, Conductor & Musicologist

An expert on American popular music, Mr. Rubin specializes in “living history” concerts and recreating the music of 1890-1949 in a historically accurate manner.  Recent concerts include tributes to Hal Kemp, Isham Jones, Clyde McCoy and Freddy Martin Orchestras performing their original 1930s and 40s arrangements for the first time in decades. Mr. Rubin and his Orchestra commemorated the centennial of the Armistice with a tour of Over There: The Music of World War One in November 2018.  Mr. Rubin restored original orchestrations from the archives of Grammy Award winning historian Michael Feinstein for a tribute to one of the most popular radio stars of the 1930s, Rubinoff and His Violin. Other favorite concert recreations include Victor Herbert’s 22nd Regiment Band 1897 Inaugural Grand Concert for Canton’s own President William McKinley and An Evening with Sigmund Romberg with a 40-piece concert orchestra.

Mr. Rubin founded American Musical Productions in 2003 and is one of the foremost authorities on early American Musical Theatre 1890-1930. Mr. Rubin has devoted his efforts to researching and restoring the forgotten masterpieces of the American musical stage including The Prince of Pilsen (1903), The Wizard of Oz (1902), The Sultan of Sulu (1902), and Madame Sherry (1910). Mr. Rubin also mounted 100th Anniversary productions of The Chocolate Soldier by Oscar Straus and Victor Herbert’s Naughty Marietta in Palm Beach, Florida. Mr. Rubin currently splits his time between Ohio and New York City. 

Mr. Rubin was appointed Curator of The Ted Lewis Museum in "the capital of the world," Circleville, Ohio in 2012.  He has since cataloged all of Ted Lewis' original music arrangements, papers, photographs, recordings and  spearheaded a renovation of the museum for its 40th Anniversary.  Mr. Rubin is the director of the new Ted Lewis Orchestra and has restored many of Lewis' manuscript arrangements from the museum's collection.

Mr. Rubin has also devoted many years to the study and preservation of silent films and the art of silent film accompaniment. In 2001, Mr. Rubin founded the Annual Lillian and Dorothy Gish Film Festival at the Lions Lincoln Theatre in Massillon, Ohio. The festival honored Massillon’s own Lillian Gish, “the First Lady of the Silent Screen” and her sister Dorothy.  Mr. Rubin has accompanied numerous silent films with orchestra, theatre organ or piano at venues throughout the country.